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If you love it, change it: The Rampage series

8:24 PM on 05.11.2008, ZombiePlatypus 25 comments

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[Editor's note: ZombiePlatypus gets May's Monthly Musing finally kicked off. For this "If you love it, change it", ZombiePlatypus takes a look at the Rampage series. -- CTZ]

I’ve always liked the Rampage series. Be it in the arcades or staying up all night with the NES version back in the day, Rampage has been an addiction of mine. I have a good time wrecking identical buildings over and over again for hours, so sue me. I bought the first two Midway Arcade Treasure collections pretty much just for the Rampage games. I still get a kick out of the mindless fun out of the older games.

The thing is the series hasn’t evolved at all. No matter how many sequels come out, it’s still pretty much the same game that it was a couple decades ago, just with more monsters. That being the case, I haven’t felt the need to buy any of the recent Rampages, not when the classics are readily available. I have some ideas that could fix that though. Hit the jump for my thoughts. 



The first big change would be to get rid of the side-scrolling perspective, swapping it out for an open world. No longer should Rampage be confined to “levels”, but it would be a full 3D destructathon. Think of a game like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or Oblivion, with their wide-open maps.

Now since the main characters in Rampage have always been giant hulking monsters the sky-scrapers and buildings would be shrunk down to a proportionate height, that way you could make the world map literally the whole world. I’d have a stylized take of the entire planet be the monster’s playground. Walk in one direction long enough and you’ll be back where you started eventually.



You’d have approximations of the major cities throughout the world, and a ton more smaller “filler” cities, towns, villages and landmarks spread throughout. The main objective would remain the same, destroy everything. S

pread throughout the planet would be various military installations and high-tech labs, each tailored to it’s specific country or region. They‘d need to be destroyed to advance towards the end. Each base/lab would have a unique monster locked up within and once the facility has taken enough damage, the beast would be set free. These would be the “boss fights”, and once you defeat the escaped monster they would be added to your stable of playable creatures.



At the start of the game there’d be the classic trio of George, Lizzie and Ralph to choose from. Co-op would of course remain, as it’s integral to the Rampage experience. The entire game must be playable with a friend, even if you can just as easily go it alone. You’d be able to save your game at any time outside of a town/village/city’s limits, you’d also be able to swap out monsters whenever you want when outside of civilization.

Swimming would be added to the game to enable you to reach the other continents. The monsters should be relatively fast swimmers so crossing the oceans isn’t a chore, and attacks from naval fleets would happen at random to keep the player from getting bored while crossing the sea.



Once all of the bases/labs are destroyed and the game is “over” you can continue playing. As every Godzilla movie has taught us, people will just keep on rebuilding. You could torment cities in various stages of reconstruction, from scaffolds to completely rebuilt.

So there’s how I’d change a game series I love, by breathing some (a lot of) new life into Rampage. I think if done right it would feel like the classic game with a lot of added dimension. Probably like the bastard child of War of the Monsters (which was pretty much Rampage: The Brawler) and Crackdown. That‘d be fun, right?


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Wexx's Avatar
Wexx at 05/11/2008 11:26
I miss Rampage :(
ZombiePlatypus's Avatar
ZombiePlatypus at 05/11/2008 19:42
braulio09-

Maybe just North America then. I was halfway thinking the entire planet might be overkill, but my thinking it would be awesome won out. Scaling it back to just NA (+ Hawaii) would still rock, wandering around the fifty states and however many Canadian provinces, into some of Mexico... That'd still make for an epic game...
Shakey1245's Avatar
Shakey1245 at 05/11/2008 20:55
Front Page. Nicely done. :D

Like yourself I enjoyed playing Rampage and would like to see ti brought back in a "next gen" way. Your suggestion of an open world sandbox sort of gameplay sounds very cool, I agree with most that the whole Earth might be a bit too big but still I like the grand vision you've got there.

Only thing I'd like to suggest is for online Live/PSN play to have a mode where 16 players (if possible) get to take it in turn one at a time to play the monster while the remaining 15 play as army types, with access to tanks, helicopters and planes ect. The aim for the monster is to wreck the city while the military has to bring the monster down.
Das Inchworm's Avatar
Das Inchworm at 05/11/2008 20:56
congrats!

good article man.
Jerkbutt47's Avatar
Jerkbutt47 at 05/11/2008 21:16
I would most certainly play that.
protoknuckles's Avatar
protoknuckles at 05/11/2008 21:36
I'd add some more mission structure and RPG leveling. For example blowing up a nuclear power plant to radiate yourself in order to increase some stats. OH! And statistics holding is important. I NEED to know how many buildings I crushed, cars I threw and people I ate.
Jonathan Holmes's Avatar
Jonathan Holmes at 05/11/2008 21:45
You got GoNintendo'ed.

Nice work, Haus.
Vongore's Avatar
Vongore at 05/11/2008 22:04
Soooo, turn Rampage into a "Destroy all humans" Spin off? No Thanks, i rather keep on climbing 2D buildings while eating people and toilets
Dexter345's Avatar
Dexter345 at 05/11/2008 22:11
This could work, but I feel like it would have an entirely different feel than the 2D Rampage games. That could be good, or it could be awful.

My only concern is that if you make the world as large as I'd imagine it would be, crossing the oceans would be a pain unless you make them swim ridiculously fast. I know you mentioned it in the writeup, but I feel like I'd want it to take at least 20 minutes to cross the United States, but then it'd take longer than that to cross the Pacific, which would be a bore.

Perhaps there would be teleportation devices in the labs?
Droll's Avatar
Droll at 05/11/2008 22:23
At some point, though, isn't the best Rampage sequel ever made Radical Entertainment's 2005 Hulk: Ultimate Destruction?
That was a game where you could destory buildings, fight humans, and cause larger than life mayhem.
That was a licensed game and it was way better than Rampage.

I would think Midway has killed the Rampage franchise dead. Im not sure that dog 'll hunt anymore.
Eschatos's Avatar
Eschatos at 05/11/2008 22:39
I don't think moving to 3D would be a very good idea. It failed for the Godzilla games, and somehow it just doesn't sound like it would be that fun. I think a giant 2D world would be best.
Samit Sarkar's Avatar
Samit Sarkar at 05/11/2008 22:46
Congrats on the front page, dude! I remember playing Rampage World Tour on the N64 at a friend’s house...man, what a crazy game.
Mxyzptlk's Avatar
Mxyzptlk at 05/11/2008 23:03
Grats on the promotion, and I agree with Droll that the Hulk: Ultimate Destruction game is pretty much the spiritual successor to Rampage. With less giant ape-men and more Hulk.

The World Tour game is worth tracking down, not half bad if you're a Rampage junkie.
mistic's Avatar
mistic at 05/11/2008 23:22
Yeah I'd totally play that :-D

I loved the Rampage on lynx!
Orionsaint's Avatar
Orionsaint at 05/12/2008 04:58
King of the Monsters was like Rampage's evil step-brother.
Droll's Avatar
Droll at 05/12/2008 05:17
Also,you can't forget War of the Monsters, that super weird (especially if you look at the game now!) fighting game from Incognito, the creators of the good Twisted Metal games, as well as Warhawk. Technically,that was a game about fighting other monsters, but being a dick to your friends while PLAYING Rampage was always an integral part of the expierience anyway.
If you're looking for a neat idea wrapped in an aging PS2 game, War of the Monsters may satisfy that urge to Rampage all around the world.
(7.1)
Cowzilla3's Avatar
Cowzilla3 at 05/12/2008 07:44
I love Rampage, every iteration. I've bought them all but this would be awesome even if I'd miss the old school style.
JamnOnTheOne's Avatar
JamnOnTheOne at 05/12/2008 07:48
The sad thing is you've pretty much described the Apple IIe EPYX classic "Movie Monster" (which I think inspired Midway's Rampage in the first place).

A "3D" world where you destroy the city while fighting the army with movie monsters like mothra, godzilla, and king kong.
welkstar's Avatar
welkstar at 05/12/2008 09:24
I like your take on a 3D conversion of the game. It just makes sense the way you've described it.
miketava's Avatar
miketava at 05/12/2008 10:51
You'd have to be able to do some massive hulk like jumps or something to travel. That'd be sweet
ZombiePlatypus's Avatar
ZombiePlatypus at 05/12/2008 10:55
I never played the Hulk game, or the Destroy All Humans games, but how "large" were they? I mean the Hulk only gets so big, right? And how many cities did he run around in? George, Lizzie, Ralph et al are ginormous, so I would think the scale would be way different... I dunno... Besides, Rampage wasn't exactly the most original idea in the first place. It was just good fun.

JAMNONTHEONE- I just looked up that "Movie Monster" game and it looks like it'd have been awesome, I never had an Apple II or Commodore 64 though. The screenshots I saw reminded me a lot of War of the Monsters, with that whole b-movie theatre vibe...
Cyberxion's Avatar
Cyberxion at 05/12/2008 13:46
Eh, maybe it would be best if Midway handed over design responsibilites to you, because your ideas have more merit than anything they've done with the series since World Tour (minus the swimming bit you proposed), and even that game was kind of crap.

Unfortunately that's not a possibility, because even if Midway does do something with Rampage, much like everything else they do, the results will be poor at best.

Don't get me wrong, I was a fan of their games once-upon-a-time, but their overall lack of talent becomes more readily apparent with each game they release. And when it comes to farking up games that I once loved, their ineptitude stings all the more. I think that by this point, Rampage needs to be retired outright so that we can retain the good memories we have of the first one...
Jiffylube's Avatar
Jiffylube at 05/12/2008 15:23
Meh...
Love the game, smaller changes would do wonders. Remake on the Wii, allow the nunchuk and wiimote to be my arms letting me simulate scooping up people then eating them for health, throwing tanks, shimmying up buildings, shooting fireballs, I think letting the mic on the wiimote pick up the sound of my roar causing the villagers too flee would be cool.

Damn you ZombiePlatypus. I want this now.
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