Rampage World Tour

The Good
I still remember the original Rampage eons ago in the arcade and this first time it hit the NES back in the day, I was salivating like crazy even though the NES was lacking, it was still fun to play a home version of Rampage.

Well, a while back I was strolling through an arcade one day in Atlantic City and thought I was imagining things when I saw "RAMPAGE" on the front of an arcade machine, but I did a double take when I realized it was a sequel. Needless to say, I damn near had a stroke. After pumping close to $15 bucks into that sucker, I was jumping for joy at the though, "Oh man, I hope this gets released on the consoles one day".

Well one day it crossed my mind and started on a search for this game and low and behold I found it on the Playstation and damn near had a heart attack before I could pop it in. Needless to say, I was floored. The game seems to be a perfect port of the arcade

Now true, the graphics are a bit degraded due to being a home console, but they were still damn good for a Playstation. The sound effects were awesome and the growls of the monster along with the people screaming, explosions and buildings collapsing just made my spine shiver in ecstasy.

The control was pretty damn good for this as well, despite being most used for a joystick on the arcade, the d-pad worked pretty well for this. Just about everything in this game was so perfect, even to this day I still pop it in from time to time to relive the old memories from those glorious days.

The Bad
Well, one thing and one thing only bothered me about this game and it was the loading and saving times. True, back then it couldn't be helped, but when you played so much of the arcade, the loading times seemed like an eternity. Truly to me, this was the only thing that bothered me.

The Bottom Line
This game is one hell of a game, it's almost like playing a mini-arcade version at home. There was a re-release that Midway released a little while back for the PS2, but it was so severely flawed it wasn't funny. It did get rid of the long loading and saving times, but the majority of the sounds were replaced and it just seemed like it was running at a fast paced. So, if you never got to experience this game, you best bet is to go all out for the Playstation One version. In my opinion, the best conversion of this fabulous arcade game.

The Good
Rampage is the conversion from the arcade game of Rampage. Set across the 2D side-scroller world, you must destroy Scumlabs Inc. (for reasons not mentioned in the game). The update to N64 came with greatly updated graphics, better resolution, and bigger cities to destroy, as well as many other things. The list goes on.

The greatest part of this game is thats it has three player co-op. Its just so much fun that you can spend hours just playing this game with friends. It's hilarious. You can step on cows, destroy trains, eat graves, and puke on your friends. You can even fight each other. All the while millions of enemies are in your way like tanks, helicopters, and battle-mechs. The gameplay is hilarious and is gaurunteed laughs. Another great part is that there is unlimited lives, so the frustrations of the arcade with quarters is gone, and there is unlimited fun.

Destroying buildings is really fun too. There are dozens of ways to do this. Kicking, punch, jumping on top of it, using tanks, spacecraft, and special moves. The combinations are countless. Eating people, though there aren't as many ways, is still fun.

Levels have been changed since the arcade to be bigger. The level scrolls and loops around, so either direction you go in will bring you to the same building. The levels are 2D like the arcade (would they really be good in 3D?). The buildings go higher too. The stage scrolls up just for some buildings.

Graphics are superb for a side-scroller. Tons of enemies and bullets are on the screen and the game will never lag up. The movements are smooth (most of the time).

Enemy AI is good for the most part. Sometimes confused citizens will walk right into your hands. However, the enemies fight and shoot well, a nice added touch.

Lastly, sound is average. Sound effects (bullets, etc.) are basic sounds. Music is average as well, but most of the time there's so much going on you can't even hear it.

The Bad
There are two major problems and two minor problems with this game.

The big problem with this game is that it is only good with 3 players. The game gets its strengths with its gameplay, but with no one around to share it with, its not that great. One player gets boring and frustrating with only one person.

The other major problem is that the concept never changes. EVER. Now, the levels vary in building, enemies, and backgrounds, etc. But the objectives are always the same: Destroy all buildings. Now this is VERY fun. But after about 2 hours the gameplay gets kind of old. Whats worse is that you usually have to go about 7-10 cities before actually getting to a Scumlab. Yeah, repetitive.

The other two minor problems is that they didn't make it 4 player. What were they thinking? As well, some of the enemies who knock you down will get more frustrating every time you encounter them.

The Bottom Line
The game is absolutely terrific up to the first 2 hours. You will laugh your ass of just playing it with friends. However, the gameplay gets old after a while. And the game lacks when playing one player mode. Despite the fact that the levels are the same for one, two, or three players, its just not the same.

Rampage World Tour is a hilarious game with addictive gameplay, but make sure you have some friends to play with or else the game loses most of its luster.