Rumble Racing

Download Rumble Racing and experience the high-octane thrill of arcade racing! Customize your car, master daring tracks, and leave your opponents in the dust. Rev your engines and get ready to rumble now!
a game by Electronic Arts
Platform: Playstation 2
Editor Rating: 7.7/10, based on 3 reviews
User Rating: 7.1/10 - 137 votes
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See also: Racing Games, Games Like Blur, Car Games
Rumble Racing
Rumble Racing
Rumble Racing

Overview

Hop into your fuel-injected muscle car as you slam on the gas. Race against the clock towards the finish line, passing your competitors at over a hundred crazy miles an hour and leaving them behind to eat your dust. You are the champion now and forever, and no rookie will take that away from you. In the home stretch you can see a glimpse of the checkered flag. Now is not the time to choke; victory is in your grasp. Time to go full throttle and show your adoring fans who is the true king of the roads.

Gameplay, Controls, Interface

The object of Rumble Racing is to race around the track, defying the laws of gravity and doing it all before lunchtime. As usual you choose a vehicle that gives you the advantage over your opponents. Once things are in order, you determine what track best suits your needs to humiliate the other drivers in front of the audience. To make things more interesting on the track, you have the option of picking up multiple power-ups that can make or break the game for you. With all these elements, including the fact that you can increase your track time if you perform a few stunts, your driver could be a regular daredevil of death.

Before you start the game, keep in mind that a lot of things will be closed off to you. You have a limited selection of courses and a slim pick of choice cars at your disposal. After you choose what you want, you can move on to a simple race between yourself and the computer or one of your friends. You can amuse yourself by testing your racing skills in a championship against the computer, or try the stunt course where the object is to perform as many crazy maneuvers as you can before you run out of time. As the game progresses you may find ways to unlock more courses and cars to attain the highest scores. Though in the end it seems highly unlikely that you'll have the patience or sanity to unlock all the secrets, it sure is worth the try to be able to race some of those muscle cars.

Getting behind the wheel is only half the game; the other half is being able to control the car. As you would suspect the controls come down to steering the car left and right, stepping on the gas to move forward or reverse, and of course the brake. You may also aim the power-ups you pick up throughout the race to slow down the other drivers. Basically you're stuck with a vehicle that has a few tricks, but nothing that makes you jump out of your seat.

If might makes right, this certainly holds true when it comes to collecting power-ups. You can gather some truly impressive power-ups that may aid you by shooting at the other cars or protecting your vehicle from the other drivers' onslaughts. Some of the more advantageous power-ups are the shock wave attacks or the kind that shower the track with debris. My personal favorite power-up is a little number called the tornado, which is not just a clever name. I found that once the tornado was in my possession I could regain the lead with little difficulty, since my opponents were more concerned with getting back to the ground in one piece.

What type of high-speed racing game would this be without the capacity to pull off some fantastic stunts? It would be a game that's worth getting out of bed to play. To my dismay, the stunts were lacking in every possible category. One of the major annoyances of pulling off stunts is that they're in a slow-motion setting that makes you just go nuts -- not to mention the fact that a car can only do so many maneuvers. The idea of putting stunts in the game just seemed ridiculous.

Multiplayer Support

If you think one player is fun, then having another person participating with you has got to be twice as fun, right? Wrong. The game is already lacking as it is, and sharing the screen with another person makes things even more confusing. Although the screen is cut in half to make it accessible for two players, I found it more enjoyable to leave it in single player.

Graphics

One of the game's only saving graces is decent-quality graphics. The courses I had access to were unique, each with a particular theme that helped me feel like I was actually in the driver's seat. Each car had an excellent paint job that made it stand out from the others, including its performance on the track. I particularly enjoyed the look of the power-up effects, such as the tornado. If you think the car should show the personality of the driver, Rumble Racing has a car for every type of person imaginable.

Audio

If the graphics of Rumble Racing make the game, the audio breaks it. To give you an idea how pathetic things are in the sound department, just imagine all you can hear is a bundle of obnoxious engines blasting in your ear. I was hoping for some catchy theme music, or possibly some sort of explosions -- anything that just made you want more. Instead, you get to listen to a witty announcer insulting you the entire way and reminding you when you screw up. This guy drove me up the wall, making me want to finish the race as quickly as possible so I could get out of the car and break his jaw with a tire iron.

Bottom Line

Now that I'm done with Rumble Racing I have to say that it isn't appropriate for everyone, but it isn't a total loss. If you're up to the challenge, I suggest you sit down and invest some of your time unlocking all the courses and cars. Also there are a couple of special effects that most people would enjoy, namely the power-up that creates the devastating tornado. In the long run, I'd suggest that you pass this game by and save your money for one of the hotter releases later this season.

Download Rumble Racing

Playstation 2

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP

Game Reviews

Rumble Racing is an arcade-style racing game with nitro-boosted cars and tons of weapons, making it one heck of a racing game. Rumble Racing has a few faults that hold it back from being a hit. The first thing you notice is how awesome it looks. There are many options to customize your car. You can't go wrong with this game with both single-player and multiplayer modes.

Time To Race

Rumble Racing is an arcade-style racing game with nitro-boosted cars and tons of weapons. The idea of driving around in a car, trying to beat all the other drivers in a race is fun no matter what type of car you're driving or if there are any weapons at all—but having them both together makes for one heck of a racing game!

The game starts with you choosing from three different vehicles: A sports car, SUV/family car, or monster truck (which isn't a car... but it gets the job done). There are also two different types of races: Point-to-point and circuit. Point-to-point races have one lap, while circuit races have multiple laps that take place on one track repeatedly until someone wins by getting enough points first (which means hitting walls won't end your run early).

Rumble Racing has only a few faults that hold it back from being a hit. The game is not very challenging, making it too easy for players to breeze through the story mode without much trouble. While this may be good for kids and casual gamers who want to enjoy their time with Rumble Racing, more experienced gamers will be bored by the same old formulaic gameplay. Another drawback is that the game lacks originality. At the same time, NASCAR Racing 2 offers some new features such as pit stops and engine upgrades. Rumble Racing has everything else you'd expect from modern arcade racing games: customizable cars and drivers, multiple racing modes, rivalries between drivers, etc.

One last gripe I have with Rumble Racing's lack of innovation is that it doesn't do anything new with its narrative or characters. While this isn't necessarily bad—after all, not every game needs a complex plot—it does mean that if you've played any other racing game in recent years, there probably won't be anything here to surprise you.

The first thing you will notice when playing Rumble Racing is how awesome it looks. Nothing is more thrilling than going into one of the many tunnels on the track and feeling your car accelerate to over 200 miles per hour in no time! The graphics are smooth and colorful and provide a good sense of speed.

Customize Your Car

Another great feature of this game is the many options to customize your car. You can buy your vehicle's new parts and paint jobs, rims, stickers, and decals. You can also add lights to make it look better at night.

Rumble Racing has both single-player and multiplayer modes, which is excellent. You can play with up to 8 players on the same console or against the computer. If you have more than one person who wants to play but only one controller, the game allows multiple people to use different controllers.

Conclusion

Rumble Racing is an arcade-style racing game with nitro-boosted cars and tons of weapons. The Burnout 3: Takedown engine produces great-looking graphics, while the various options you have to customize your car make this game that much more fun.

8

So if you’re into games like Burnout Syndrome and Need for Speed, then check out Rumble Racing.

Pros

  • Amazing graphics
  • Variety of vehicles
  • Fun mechanics

Cons

  • Steep learning curve
  • Weird A.I

Lots of muscle cars, plenty of tracks, plus power-ups like shields and bombs--this is NASCAR Rumble for the PS2 sans license. New to the series is a collection of stunt tracks and commentary by Jess Harnell (voice of Wacko from Animaniacs). If this upgrade plays anything like the original, expect a lot of insanity on the track this summer from Electronic Arts.

Snapshots and Media

Playstation 2 Screenshots