A Lesson on How NOT To Revive an Old Game Series

Although the "Ready 2 Rumble" boxing series was never my cup of tea, none of the past series entries have received the type of scathing backlash that the latest Wii release (titled 'Revolution') has.

A series previously owned by Midway (who sold the license for their boxing franchise off after having troubling financial issues) and now the property of Atari, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing Revolution was supposed to be a casual-friendly revival for this once moderately popular series. The Ready 2 Rumble name has been out of the loop for nearly eight years, after all (its last appearance being the early GameBoy Advance rendition of Round 2 in Spring 2001), so what better time for a Renaissance-style resurrection than now?

Unfortunately, Ready 2 Rumble Revolution looks as if its not the type of comeback that fans have been looking for. Like a harrowed sports legend past his prime and only dirtying his memory by making a pitiful reappearance, Revolution has received horrendously bad reviews thus far. Game Informer went as far to give it their lowest score possible (an appalling 1 out of 10, something that hasn't been given out to a single title in their publication for ages). Gamespot gave it a slightly higher (but still pitiful) 3.5 out of 10, noting that Revolution had an excellent amount of potential but that the atrocious controls and lame, stereotypical characters ruin the entire game.

From the poor recreation of boxing on Nintendo's original Wii Sports pack-in to Ready 2 Rumble Revolution (as well as the glut of shovel ware boxing titles found on the system in-between those two releases), no developer has gotten this sports genre correct on the Wii yet. This is a shame, as the Wii's unique controls could very well make for an engaging boxing experience if done right. Oh well.... maybe EA could release one of their acclaimed Fight Night titles on Nintendo's system in the future, provided it's not one of their dumbed-down "All Play" versions.

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