Wrestle girls with Rumble Rose

Amongst various other things unveiled at Konami Gamer's Day, the publisher stripped off to reveal WWX: Rumble Rose for PlayStation 2. Due out in November and set to make an appearance on the company's E3 booth, it's a women's wrestling game developed by KCET in partnership with Yuke's (they of SmackDown fame) and the CG maestros on Polygon Magic's VSL Team.

It's the first ever women's wrestling game, or, to be precise, the first game to focus singularly on women's wrestling, after WWE SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain gave us various female wrestlers from the WWE and a "Bra & Panties" mode to go with them. WWX: Rumble Rose promises "the sexiest female models to grace the ring" in "jaw-dropping graphic detail", with more and more revealing costumes amongst the rewards for success.

Players will get to pick one of a number of female wrestlers and mould them into their own fighter - experimenting and developing their own wrestling style rather than just grappling and groping, and using an array of insults, taunts and moves that put their opponents in compromising positions in order to humiliate adversaries in the ring.

Although there will be a number of pre-existing female wrestling characters, players will be able to morph their petty-coated pugilists into vicious vixens by choosing whether to fight dirty or fair - and should see their change in approach reflected in a change of costume, attitude or even wrestling style.

For a start though, Konami is billing two of the top female wrestlers in the game, one from North America and one from Japan. Dixie Clemets, for example, relies on her Dixie's Buster speciality move and struts around in county and western style trappings, while opposite number Reiko Hinomoto favours dropkicks, German suplex pins and her own Double Moonsault, even though she loves smart guys who wear glasses [that's actually in the press release, I checked! -Ed].

Having enjoyed working with skimpy outfits and whopping bazongas on THQ's SmackDown series, the team at Yuke's "could hardly wait to get started" according to president Yuke Taniguchi. "We are excited to develop a new style of wrestling game - one that provides a high quality wrestling experience, but also introduces humour and a whole lot more sex appeal."

Although we'd expect Rumble Rose to pick up a lot of stick ahead of its November launch (seriously, go wild), with Yuke's behind the project and the success of the wrestling genre - particularly in the States - Konami could just be onto a winner. They certainly stand to do a lot better than other recent interactive flesh parades, which generally suffered a dip in interest once people got to play with them.