Ready 2 Rumble Round Two is the second of Midway's arcade-style boxing games, although the first (and only...with any luck) on the GBA.

Midway’s Ready 2 Rumble has appeared on other consoles and combines boxing with Michael Buffer’s trademark cry to produce a 3D sock-‘em-up series. Unlike Nintendo’s classic Punch-Out games, which were more like logic/reflex games, Ready 2 Rumble was more of a fighter and best enjoyed when playing with friends. The objective of Ready 2 Rumble is simply to pummel your opponent from one end of the boxing ring to the other!

The basis of the game is simplistic, and possibly kind of fun, except the designers seemed to almost deliberately lay down some horrible, horrible flaws. A lot of characters are AWOL, the control is terrible, and all of the characters play almost completely similarly. But all that's nothing on the glaring, crippling problem that, had it been fixed, may have made the game worth buying.

Well, this is the train of thought that followed turning on R2R: "Arcade... Championship with the mini-games... uh huh... hmm, I wonder if I can play two player with one cart? I don't see 2 player on the menu anywhere... whoa, no mention on the manual either. No multiplayer! What a scam!"

Once again, if you only read one thing in the review, read this: there is no multiplayer in Ready 2 Rumble Round 2. No multiplayer.

If I've done my job, I've convinced you not to buy the game, but let's trudge on anyway. Here's the character roster, if you happen to be a fan of the series. Er, right: Afro Thunder, Lulu Valentine, Raging Rivera, Jet Chin, Mama Tua, Johnny Blood, Robox Rese4, Joey T., Shaq, Michael Jackson, and the wacky overpowered mutant Michael Buffer boss, Rumble Man. There are three basic modes in the game - Arcade, Championship, and Survival. In Arcade mode, you fight your way through all the opponents, and a couple of extras like Michael Jackson and Shaq are added in on the tougher difficulties. Codes can be earned for accessing them, or earned by exerting a massive effort in clicking your mouse over to the codes section. Fantastic.

Since there's no 2-player mode, Championship mode becomes the best R2R has to offer. A character is selected, and stats can be built with training mini-games. Some are rather tricky tests of timing or "Simon"-like pattern games, although another one, Speed Bag, is just an exercise in simply hitting the button. Progress can only be saved with passwords, but it's not totally unrealistic to play through the whole thing in one go.

In Survival mode, the opponents are fought one after another until you run out of health. Nothing special, to be sure, but better than not having it, right?

Oh yes, and the Options - there are adjustments for time, difficulty, knockdowns, same old, same old. You can adjust the sound and music volumes, which is pretty odd considering there isn't really any music outside of the title screen and between rounds.

Speaking of sound, Michael Buffer has lots of great sounding samples and the crowd sounds beautiful. There's no music aside from the intro bit and in-betweens. It doesn't really seem meant for the game, alongside a cheering crowd at some sort of alleged sporting event. The game looks as good as it sounds, with smooth polygonal (or at least reasonably-faked polygonal) characters in a 3D ring. Nice, sharp looking crowds, multiple backgrounds, and a little hidden treat of seeing a half-screen 3D boxer move and say a line when you receive one of the aforementioned codes. Too bad it's all a very shiny wrapping around a heart of icky black stuff where the gameplay is supposed to be.

The control feels reasonable, except for a particular flaw. It won't accept another button input, particularly block button, when another move is finishing up. You have to wait until the idle animation to start holding block. This might not seem like a big deal, unless you're like anybody who has played a fighting game ever. It'll take some mental deprogramming to get used to this.

The Rumble meter is built up by taunting (only one taunt per character in this version) or hitting the opponent with a reasonably strong hit. L+R activates the rumble mode, which enables unlimited stamina - that means it's time to punch punch punch. There's also a move where you can knock the opponent out of the ring by building up the Rumble meter three times, but I've never found it particularly useful.

So, finally, Ready 2 Rumble Round 2 is a bit short-lived and simplistic, but worst of all is the omission of a two-player mode. There's barely a reason to play it, let alone buy it.