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White House Rumble Review
Written by Justin Davis on Thursday, November 1, 2007
All the political caricatures look great. Gameplay is as smooth as ever.
Humor is hit & miss. Gameplay is entirely recycled.
White House Rumble is Glu Mobile's well-positioned follow-up to last year's cartoony boxing title Super KO Boxing. In that title you faced off against a variety of over-the-top opponents, most of whom adhered to racial stereotypes in a lighthearted, inoffensive way.
This time around those fictional opponents have been replaced with heavyweights from the political arena. Opponents include Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Hillary Clinton, and of course, George W. Bush himself.
Despite the real-world line-up, Glu kept things amusing by taking some... errr... "liberties" with their subjects. Some of the parodies work better than others, however. I literally laughed out loud when a roided-out Hillary flexed, and gigantic muscles burst apart her skirt-suit. But other send-ups vary from the obvious (Bush strongly resembles a monkey), to the downright strange (Rudy Guilani is depicted as a zombie, complete with green flesh and a detached retina).
The gameplay itself remains unchanged from Super KO. The first few opponents can be taken out just by unleashing a flurry of punches. But after that, a more strategic, slower pace has to be adopted. It becomes a game of learning each opponent's patterns, weaknesses, and tells, and then exploiting that knowledge. Most of the game is spent waiting for your opponent to strike, dodging or blocking that attack, then counter-attacking.
In addition to a circuit mode that has gamers facing off against each opponent one after the other, gamers can also face off in single bouts to hone their skills, or to try and earn a new high score. Rounding out the package is a challenge mode, which mixes up the formula by requiring gamers to win bouts in a variety of challenging ways, such as winning without being hit, or winning in the first round.
Glu definitely took an "if it ain't broke..." approach to White House Rumble. Everything, from the controls, to the modes of play, to the sound effects, is identical to what was found in Super KO. It would have been nice if something new was present, besides the political coat of paint. Still, it's the patterns and tells of each individual boxer that make up the heart of the game, and they're all brand new. So that makes White House Rumble more of a true sequel than other mobile game re-skins.
One's political involvement will no doubt inform just how much enjoyment they get out of White House Rumble. I think there are a lot of people out there that would really get a kick out of punching Barack Obama or Dick Cheney in the face. But in terms of pure gameplay fun factor, although White House Rumble plays as smooth as ever, I give the edge to Super KO.
