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 Rampage is mainly known as that
cool arcade game where you got to play as King Kong or Godzilla and
destroy cities around the United
States. I played this game countless times
(mainly at a local wave pool) and never really dreamed about it being an
NES game. Of course, it was ported
over to the NES by Data East and the gameplay is very much the same. You star as the two aforementioned monsters
(actually thinly disguised as George the Gorilla and Lizzie the Lizard)
and you must make your way through 128 levels (or days) of
destruction.
Each level consists of one screen.
On the screen are a handful of buildings that you can climb and
smash to pieces. Along the way you
can eat any humans that you find, steal food and other objects from the
building that you are destroying and snatch helicopters out of the sky
and tanks off of the street. Most
things you take improve your health but there are certain items that will
hurt you if ingested including toilets, lobsters and cacti. You begin the game in California
and will make your path of destruction across the United States and Canada visiting both big cities (Chicago, Detroit, Manhattan) and little towns
(Aurora, Plano).
The big cities will take you multiple days while the little towns
will be destroyed in a single visit.
After every seven levels there is a bonus stage where you race to
find a healthy snack hidden in a building. Every once in awhile the game will move
to a map of the United States,
charting your path of destruction across the U.S.
Although this game was a classic at the arcades, it didn’t really make
a successful transition to the NES as the graphics and general fun of the
game have been greatly reduced. While
sequels would appear down the line, we heard no more from George, Lizzie
or Rampage on the NES.
 Positives:
The best aspect of this game
is that it is a two-player simultaneous game. You and a friend can compete for the
most points while bashing towns across America. The controls are also pretty solid as
you can destroy things in any direction while climbing buildings. The game has a sense of humor as well,
since you can snatch people off of toilets and can be knocked off of
buildings yourself by guns, bombs and even annoying photographers.
Glaring
Negatives:
The biggest problem with this
game is that it is insanely repetitive.
Every level looks and plays exactly the same with the exception of
how many buildings are on each screen.
All you do is climb buildings and smash them up for 128
levels. You can’t tell you are in Chicago or Manhattan
other than the fact that there may be a couple more buildings on the
screen and it may take you a few levels to completely destroy the
town. The music is also very repetitive
to the point where I muted the game and just put on my own music after
and hour or two. There is also a
lame bonus game where you race to find an icon that will refill your
life. Unfortunately no skill is
required since the icon is just placed randomly on the side of one of the
monsters. After each level you are
given a hint or joke to read, but the lazy writers only included about
10, which means you read each one about 12.8 times. Let’s just say they stop being funny sometime
before their tenth appearance.
Graphics
and Sound: OK
The graphics aren’t anything
special and certainly pale in comparison to the arcade version but the
two monsters do look cool and they can do some funny things to the tiny
people inhabiting the buildings.
The sound is ok at first but gets annoying quickly.
Gameplay
and Controls: Repetitive
Rampage is fun
for the first handful of stages but gets really old way before you’ve
completely destroyed the United
States. The controls are fine other than the
awkward jumping (it’s impossible to jump straight up).
Features:
2 player
The only feature is that two
players can play at the same time.
Fun?:
For a little while
 This one is fun for a few minutes and
then becomes extremely boring.
Challenge:
Not Much
You get unlimited lives so
there isn’t really any challenge, except for the fact that the game is
128 levels long! I imagine most
people just turn the game off because they’re bored long before they’ve
beaten the sucker.
Replay: Very
little
I was happy once I beat it
because I knew I’d never have to play it again. I can imagine there being a little
replay value in the two-player mode, though, because it is fun bashing
each other.
2
Player: Yes!
The saving grace of Rampage is the two-player
version. Since there is unlimited lives, there’s no reason not to go after
each other in an all-out war for the highest score. If you change your goal from beating
the game to beating your buddy, I can see you enjoying this game quite a
bit.
Online
Manual?: Yes at Nintendo Age
You can find every NES manual at www.nintendoage.com
Bottom
Line: Pretty boring
Rampage is just
way too repetitive to be considered good.
It is a decent arcade game and can be fun in its two-player
mode. Unless you were a huge fan
of this game in the arcades you probably won’t want to play this game all
the way to the finish line.
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