Rampage: Total Destruction

Monsters on the loose!

NA release: 24th April 2006
EU release: N/A
JP release: N/A
Developer: Pipeworks Software
Publisher: Midway Games
NGC Magazine Score: N/A
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

The wonky transition to 3D period was pretty much a staple of the N64 and PS1 era, so by the end of the GameCube and PS2 era, you don’t really expect to see it anymore. Yet here comes Rampage, looking and feeling like a bad attempt at transitioning to 3D in 1996. It even has the same issue with a lot of bad moves to 3D in that it doesn’t do anything new, yet they had to remove a ton of stuff.

Total destruction has the same gameplay as the previous games – smash all buildings, eat some people – but across a rather small number of cities, meaning there isn’t much visual difference between levels. The amount of buildings you smash in one level is also much smaller (1-3 per section). There is a rudimentary upgrade mission from eating specific random objects from windows, but everything else is a downgrade.

Rampage always had a problem with controls, particularly with moving between different “depths” (like going from the street to the side of a building). You would expect 3D to fix this, but they somehow haven’t figured it out. Instead, everything moves extremely slowly and every monster has a float that makes them feel like they’re cuddly toys filled with feathers. It feels quite dreadful. Ultimately, smashing buildings in this isn’t satisfying. And to think they later applied bad motion controls to the already dreadful controls for the Wii version.

Midway do seem to apologise somewhat for this: Rampage and Rampage: World Tour (which were in Midway Arcade Treasures 1 & 2) are also included, and unlocked form the start. Which is a nice bonus, especially as fans of the franchise would be clamouring to play the older games within 5 minutes of starting a game of Total Destruction.