If you’re looking for a quick fix of button jabbing and destruction, this is definitely the game for you.

User Rating: 5.5 | Rampage: Total Destruction PS2
Most gamers got their start by heading into grimy, run-down arcades to shovel endless heaps of quarters into sticky arcade machines. I remember racing into the arcade anytime my parents went bowling so that I could try and beat the high scores at Gauntlet, Pac-Man, and – of course – Rampage. When Rampage went World Tour, I was there, once again shoveling quarters and driving my little wolf-man Ralph through city after city, gobbling up platoons of Army soldiers as I laid a path of destruction through this 2D world. I was more than pleased to discover that Midway had released the classic arcade game as well as World Tour in one compilation, and even added a 3D game onto it, appropriately titled Total Destruction. However, as with all nostalgic ventures into the past, this one was marred by a revisit.

Forget for the moment that Rampage is at its core nothing more than a button mashing frenzy fest. At the height of the 80’s, most games were button mashing frenzy fests, with the added bonus of gobbling quarters at an insane amount. Rampage is such a classic because it’s so simple. Climb building, break building, eat people, avoid nasty food. Rinse and repeat. If you picked up Total Destruction expecting something else, that’s just plain silly. The “campaign” mission in this game is a generic tale of mutants gone haywire, but true fans of Rampage shouldn’t be expecting anything epic. Although Total Destruction features more monsters than any of the arcade games, there’s really not much difference between these and the quarter-gobblers, except for the extra dimension. Does it get repetitive? Yes, and quickly, because you’re driving your monsters through cookie-cut cityscapes, breaking buildings and gobbling up faceless citizens as your bring about destruction and death. But again, why expect anything more? The emulations of the arcade classics are very faithful to their origins, and brought back many fond memories. Nothing was changed, the graphics weren’t beautified; it’s all very simple and tastefully done. Button mashing in limited dosages is fun, after all, and brings us back to our roots.

Why, then, do I, like so many of Rampage’s reviewers, choose to wrinkle my nose in distaste at this title? For the emulated portion of the game, my reason seems kind of silly. I could find no way to play as any other character than George the Ape. I do not like George; I much prefer Ralph. But I could not play as Ralph in either the classic or World Tour. Adding a second controller let me join Lizzy in, which leads me to believe that if the PS2 could allow a third player – aha! Do you think that is a weak excuse? I’m one of those gamers that believe if the option is available to choose a character, I should be able to choose those different characters.

As for Total Destruction itself, while the graphics are indeed very nice to look at and Rampage translated well into the 3D realm – faceless citizens aside -, the controls are rather clunky and unresponsive. There’s a rather poor object recognition interface where your mutants hands will actually pass through objects right in front of them in order to grasp something behind, in front of, or non-existent at the time. Latching on to buildings to climb them is sometimes a chore if you can’t line up properly. The load times between different areas of the city are refreshingly short, but if you try to change monsters between levels, you’d better be prepared to wait for a bit. Perhaps most frustrating, however, was the fact that while I saw an Autosave icon appear between levels, when I went back to resume my game, my progress hadn’t been saved. Most annoying.

This is still a fun game to go co-op with, clunky controls aside. Here, the PS2 is once again left in the dust, since two players is the most you can have on board for a button mashing party. The old arcade classics are a lot of fun to play, although those alone wouldn’t make this title worth a purchase. Total Destruction has several competitive modes that will allow you to battle against an opponent (and the controls) for high scores.

If you’re looking for a quick fix of button jabbing and destruction, this is definitely the game for you, but clunky controls drag down the overall presentation.