Rampage
Monsters on the Rampage
By Matthias JaapJanuary 26, 2001
One thing that the Lynx is famous for are it's fine classic arcade conversion.
Rampage is another one.
The game's story is about four scientists who discover a formula that will transform them into huge beasts. Of course they can't resist to try their formula and so they mutate to large beasts and start to terrorize American cities. You can choose between these four "heroes" and your task is to destroy and eat everything you can. Your beast has a powerful punch which can cause much damage to a building. Once a building is damaged enough it will break down. A level is cleared if there is no building left.
Unfortunately, the army has organized their defense. Soldiers are hiding in the building and they shoot or throw dynamite at you. If you have enough of them you can climb on their building and eat them. They will restore your energy a little bit but there are always enough soldiers.
The helicopters are aimed with machine guns and can cause more damage. Very dangerous for the beast are the projectiles of the tank which appears later in the game.
There is also a soldier carrying a bomb with him. He is not a thread to you but he keeps blowing up buildings. If you don't get away from a disintegrating building in time you will lose some health points. The bomb can be picked up and placed somewhere else but you have very little time to do so.
There are also harmless persons in the game. The screaming woman in her red dress does make a good meal for the monster. She tries to run away after the first time you hit her. There's also a man in his boat, a business man, a person going to the toilet and a reporter. Food or other items appear sometimes. While some of them will restore your health others won't.
After clearing a level you will be sent to the next city.
Rampage's graphics are a good conversion of the arcade graphics. Due to the smaller screen of the Lynx, the game is zoomed and
scrolls left and right. The scrolling is very smooth although the game is a bit harder than the arcade version because you can not see all enemies at once e.g. you can not see where the soldier drops his bomb. The characters are nicely animated especially the screaming woman and the beasts.
The game also uses Lynx's 3D chip for the title of the game.
There are few songs for the different levels and are quite average. Only a few sound effects are available - unfortunately no screams or other voice samples.
There are several versions of Rampage. The game has been revived a couple of times for the Playstation but all variations of the game have one thing in common: limited lasting appeal.
Rampage is a very nice game for ten or fifteen minutes but after that it tends to get boring. The cities all look very similar and your task is always the same. Only the difficulty increases but after a while you have seen all enemies, items and humans in this game and there is nothing else to do except breaking the
high score.
Overall, I would say that Rampage is a nice game for a break. It's not a real ground-breaking game but a good arcade conversion.
Game Data |
Scores
|
| Title |
Rampage |
Graphics |
80% |
| Publisher |
Atari |
Sound/Music |
65% |
| Genre |
Action |
Gameplay |
76% |
| System |
Lynx |
Control |
N/A% |
|
|
Overall |
73% |
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