WWX: Rumble Rose Update

At a press event held today in San Francisco, Konami formally announced its upcoming wrestling game, WWX: Rumble Rose. The PlayStation 2 game is being developed in part by Konami's Tokyo division, along with famed wrestling game developer Yuke's and Polygon Magic, who helped create some of the models used in Tecmo's upcoming Xbox game Ninja Gaiden as well as Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball.

While we've already covered the basics of Konami's announcement, a few more details were revealed when representatives from KCET and Yuke's took to the podium.

For starters, a big part of the gameplay in WWX will be humiliating your opponent. When done properly, this will break a girl's spirit and cause her to give up. However, this tactic can backfire and can cause an opponent to enter a charged-up state, thus giving her new moves to choose from. There is no final count for playable characters, and details like potential online capabilities are also still being researched. The game will be designed for at least two players, though there is a possibility of it being a four-player game. This decision hinges on the quality of the player models and whether or not the PlayStation 2 can handle these models--which Konami claims will include "some of the best graphics on the PS2." The high quality standards for these models will also prevent the game from having a create-a-wrestler mode. Additionally, the developers are thinking about including topless player models in the game, though no final decision appears to have been made at this time.

Aside from the gimmick-laden concept of an all-female wrestling game, Yuke's is also working hard to ensure that WWX is more than just a pretty face. The developer is out to make sure WWX is "the definitive wrestling game."

All these features certainly sound interesting, though only a short CG intro clip of girls dancing to David Lee Roth's "Yankee Rose" was shown at the event. We'll have to wait until E3 in May to see a playable version of the game. We'll have more details on WWX: Rumble Rose as soon as they become available.