I recently saw the trailer for the new movie franchise based on the Rampage series. I remember renting the NES version of the game back in grade school, and enjoyed it for a little while until I got board of it. It was fun in small doses. The trailer reminded me of the franchise, so I decided to revisit it!
The story is simple but a good enough premise for an arcade game. Depending on which character you choose (George or Lizzie) you are either a man who has taken some experiment vitamins or a woman who swam in a radioactive lake. The goal of the story is to survive the onslaught of police and military in their attempt to take you down
The gameplay is basic and focuses the player on destroy buildings while at the same time avoiding gunfire from the police and military. While controlling one of the monsters, you can jump, climb buildings and punch holes in the side of buildings. Sometimes people (or different things) are inside, some of which you can eat for health, while others will actually damage you. You can sometimes eat people off the ground to, which is kind of fun too! After you have punched enough of a building out, it will collapse.
The game does not really get more complex than this apart from having more buildings to destroy and more enemies to avoid. There are lots of levels, each of which are a full screen. Initially it is quite fun in a barbaric kind of way, but the game gets extremely repetitive (and hard) and you progress, and with little change in terms of gameplay, it becomes quite boarding. The game does include a multiplayer mode which does make it a bit more interesting, but that too can get old quickly
In terms of graphics, the game looks basic but clean. The different cityscapes in the background do add a nice aesthetic, and the character models are big enough to give a sense that you REALLY ARE MONSTERS! The music however is very repetitive and boring – and does not add anything to the game. I was hoping for something a bit more epic to help me feel more like a vicious monster. The sound effects fair a bit better but are still quite weak.
In summary, Rampage is a destruction-focused arcade game that can be fun in short spurts (10-15 minutes) but anything longer than this and it starts to get boring! The graphics are clean, but the sound and music are boring. If you have a friend to play with, it makes it a big more bearable. Overall, I give this game a Final Score of 5/10.
Final Score: 5/10
RetroGame Man 