RAMPAGE: The Video Game

With the movie coming out next year I figured this is a good time to step back in time and look at a good game. Originally an arcade game, RAMPAGE was ported to a wide variety of video game consoles such as the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), the SEGA Master system, and the Atari (Lynx, ST, 2600, and 7800). A decade later, RAMPAGE: WORLD TOUR was released for the arcade and then ported to a wide range of consoles such as the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, GameBoy Color, etc. Then, it got sequel after sequel made exclusively for video game consoles. The last game to be released was RAMPAGE: TOTAL DESTRUCTION for the Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo Wii. Each game would add new elements that the previous game didn't have like new monsters, new abilities, new stages, and so on.

Review:

RAMPAGE is a cartoony game where you play as the monsters: George, Lizzie, and Ralph. They were made in a way that parodies King Kong, Godzilla, and the Wolfman. The SEGA Master system has all three monster, but on the NES version you only get two, George and Lizzie, and The Atari Lynx has all three plus one more monster, Larry the giant rat. Your objective is to destroy all buildings on the level in order to move on to the next. The points you gain are from the buildings and vehicles that you destroy. Simple as that. The challenge is staying alive. Everything in this game is out to kill you. Helicopters, soldiers, soldiers with bombs, and even some items you find are harmful if eaten. When you go from one stage to the next you move on to the next stage with the amount of health you have left from the previous level. When you die, your monster turns back into a human. Luckily, there is food to restore your health. You can restore your health by eating turkey, fruit, and people. The whole rampage starts in Peoria, Illinois traveling across America and ending at Plano, Illinois. On the Sega Master system, you start in San Fransisco, California instead.

For its time, RAMPAGE was probably one of the better games, but it does not hold up as well today. It may have been better if I played it on a console or arcade cabinet like it was intended for and for now the only place I can access this game is on the internet. I even tried playing both versions of the game, the NES version and the SEGA version. So how did both turn out? Let's take a look at the NES version first since this is everywhere.

Nintendo Entertainment System:

The controls are simple, but the response is sort of sluggish and sometimes you need to press it twice to get the game to respond. What I find sort of frustrating is that when I want to climb a building I have to make sure I am dead next to the building. I can't be a millimeter away from the building or closer to the building otherwise it doesn't count. Other times, I find my character doing the opposite of what I want it to do. For instance, if I want it to climb a building the monster jumps o