Shawn White tries another extreme sport.

The long history of boxing is riddled with once-great fighters who decided to come out of retirement and attempt one more shot at stardom. From Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali to Sugar Ray Leonard and -- now -- Oscar De La Hoya, fighters who should have stayed outside the ropes have wandered back in only to get their bodies and their pride pummeled. Now fans of videogame boxing can experience that same sad feeling that fans of the actual sport have felt when a former great laces them up one too many times. Atari tosses its roster of whacked-out pugilists back into the ring in Ready 2 Rumble Revolution and what was once such a kick on the then-cutting-edge Dreamcast becomes an incredible drag on the now-cutting-edge Wii.

Because of the funkiness of the Wii's controls, there have been more than a few attempts to bring the Sweet Science to Nintendo's console. The system shipped with boxing as a part of Wii Sports and there was a boxing component to Wii Fit. As far as standalone games go, there has been no shortage of contenders that have vied for the title. Victorious Boxers: Revolution, Showtime Championship Boxing and Facebreaker K.O. Party, though, have all lost by unanimous decision. I had high hopes for Ready 2 Rumble Revolution, but the thing seems flawed almost from the opening bell.

The game suggests that you open things up in the tutorial mode to get a feel for the way the controls work. I'm glad I started there, because it immediately gave me a feel for just how clunky and unresponsive the controls actually are. The game's controls are meant to simulate the way you'd actually throw a punch. Shoot either fist straight out for a jab, bring your fist across to throw a hook, bring it up to throw an uppercut. On paper, it makes a lot of sense. On-screen, it's another story. Even in the tutorial mode, where your opponent wasn't throwing any leather back at you, it was still far too difficult to throw punches correctly -- or sometimes to throw them at all. Too many times you'd move the controller and nothing would happen. I know how to use a Remote and Nunchuk, so the game's profound lack of responsiveness was as frustrating and disheartening as shelling out $49.95 to your cable company for a lackluster and one-sided pay-per-view title fight.

The Wii version of "What Not to Wear."

Heck -- and that's just the tutorial. Once you get in the ring against live competition, the glaring controller issues get magnified even greater. This isn't a boxing game in the Fight Night mode. It's not a tactical battle between two highly trained and athletic strategists. It's arcade action -- pure and simple. Yet this arcade action that was so much fun on the Dreamcast -- and reasonably fun in a PlayStation 2 sequel -- gets drained of all joy when you're armed with a Remote and Nunchuk. Fighting is a nonstop game of hit-or-be-hit. It's bell-to-bell flailing. But when you're being attacked with a constant barrage of punches and only about half of your punches are registering with the game's motion sensor, it's even worse than bringing a knife to a gunfight. It's like bringing mayonnaise to a gun fight. You have to try to throw punches twice as many times in order to match your opponent.

There's nothing wrong with a game being a button-masher. I've had tons of fun with games that rewarded random, fast thumbwork over accurately timed button-pressing. That said, button-mashing on a traditional controller can be a relatively discreet thing. The motion-sensitive style of button-mashing you're forced to do on the Wii makes you look like you're being Tasered. And just in case you were wondering, the game has no option for playing the game with just the buttons or for using the classic controller.

For the truly masochistic, you can poke away at the game's Championship mode. This is a career mode where you create a fighter and then take him up the ranks from fighting at the local gym all the way to the big time -- in theory. The mode is broken up between training mini-games and actual fights. Unfortunately, as with the in-the-ring controls, the controls for the various mini-games are just as iffy. That said, there are a whole lot of different training games in which to get frustrated. You can try to jump rope, try to avoid getting slammed in the face by your trainer with a medicine ball, try to match your punches to on-screen commands, and more.

About to take one on the very large chin.

I'm guessing that the only way this disc could be considered a "pleasurable experience" delivery device would be in the two-player head-to-head mode. And you'd have to have a pretty low threshold of what you consider a pleasurable experience. In the two-player game, you're both saddled with all of the problems I've just spent a while pointing out. It's not a very fun playing field, but at least it's an even playing field.

Boxing continues to have a tough time making its way onto the Wii. Atari's Ready 2 Rumble Revolution could have been a whole lot better if development had spent a few more minutes on little things like, oh, the controls working properly. As it is, though, the game is a knockout victim. But have faith, boxing fans. Don King Boxing is set to drop later this month. Of course, when Don King is positioned to be the savior (of anything!), the Armageddon can't be far behind.


This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher. The UPS guy tried to knock on the door to let me know it was being delivered, but even though he did the knocking motion correctly with his arm, no knock occurred.