Introduction

Back before home consoles took the world by storm, arcades reigned supreme. Gamers could head to their local game plaza with a pocketful of quarters without a care in the world, but games have evolved significantly since the 80s. Rampage was a smash hit back in the day as three monsters wreaked havoc over a series of cities, and at the time this mindless button mashing was a great source of entertainment. However, the gaming industry has developed a lot in the last twenty years, but sadly Midway didn’t receive this memo. Rampage: Total Destruction on the Wii does sport a slew of new characters and competitive multiplayer modes, but sadly this game’s repetitive nature leaves it eons behind the rest of the crowd.

 

What is Rampage: Total Destruction?

The concept behind Total Destruction is fairly simple – you select from one of forty unlockable monsters and then smash your way through some of the world’s most profound cities. There’s an extremely vague storyline that tells how test subjects for Scum Soda mutated into disastrous beasts, but nothing of this is mentioned after the slightly comical introduction trailer. Only about ten or so monsters are available right from the start, so you need to release other characters from captivity in order to play as them. Each one of these ferocious beasts carries its own unique set of statistics, but the difference in attributes is hardly noticeable. In addition, the same set of five special moves, including roar attacks and smash jumps, needs to be unlocked individually by completing certain challenges. There really isn’t a whole of depth to this game; all you have to do is obliterate everything in your path. As you might have already guessed, this title is plagued with repetitive, tacked on controls that lead to an overall poor gaming experience.

Looking and Sounding like the 80’s

Even if the gameplay hasn’t changed over time, one could at least expect to see some enhancements in the presentation department, but again it’s hard not to feel shortchanged here. To give Total Destruction some credit, the level designs do a solid job in representing their respective locations; beaming lights in the Las Vegas strip and double-decker busses in London are just some of the creative touches that went in to making each level. The monster designs aren’t half bad either, and it’s hard to complain about the vast character selection. Aside from this, though, there isn’t a whole of good things to say about this game either. Every stage within each city is near identical, and the low-resolution textures and overly repeated animations don’t make this any better. The explosion effects are just average, but considering the Wii isn’t all about graphics this alone shouldn’t be a decisive factor as to whether or not this title warrants a purchase.

Unlike the visuals, there’s hardly anything positive to say about sounds used in this game. The soundtrack is composed of a few short tunes that repeat over and over again, and this alone is enough to make someone want to blow their brains out. Sound effects from scrambling citizens get old fast, but above everything else the announcer will get to you after your first few stages. His commentary is arbitrary to begin with, but the fact that all of his phrases are blurted out over and over again is just mind numbing. Sound effects from buildings being smashed, cars being thrown across the streets, helicopters exploding aren’t too bad in their defense, but the sheer amount of repetition causes Total Destruction to lose any credibility it could have earned here.

Let the World Tour Begin

Especially on the Wii, mediocre visuals and drab sounds shouldn’t totally turn you off from a game, so if you’re still undecided about this one surely the total lack of fun will be enough to save yourself. The idea for Rampage undoubtedly carries a lot of potential, but the same formula that worked back in the 80s merely isn’t strong enough.

First of all, the control scheme is incredibly half-baked, and titles like these really misrepresent the entire point of the Wii motion sensor technology. With the Wii Remote and Nunchuk setup, the control stick allows you to walk around while the remote takes care of all forms of attack. Swinging the remote forward from a vertical to horizontal position will perform a stomp attack, while moving it left and right will have your monster punch hard. Pressing ‘A’ will execute a weaker punch, while the ‘B’ trigger is used to jump. Several variations can be carried out as well, including powerful ground smashes and even a helicopter spin attack, but it’s incredibly difficult not to fall victim to the dullness.

After you take down your first couple of buildings, it becomes clear that the entire premise for the game is astonishingly weak. Every single stage revolved around climbing up a building, punching out enough areas of the building to make it collapse, and then repeating this until no more buildings stand. Objectives challenging you to eat X amount of people or eat a certain item attempt to diversify the game somewhat, but a majority of these tasks are simple to complete and only end up wasting even more of your time.

As you progress to some of the latter cities, more and more opposition will appear to prevent you from your destruction. At first a few police officers in windows will hopelessly try to bring you down, but before you know it SWAT trucks and even tanks will stop at nothing to reduce you to blood, guts, scales, or whatever your monster happens to be made of. While the idea of enemies might make you think that there is hope for this game after all, dealing with attackers is nothing more than a nuisance. When you’re mechanically climbing up and down buildings punching everything in your way, having to deal with pesky gunners on the ground seems like a chore.

If you have the time and patience to make it to the last level of the city, you’ll still have to destroy every building in site, except now there will also be a powerful boss that wont’ succumb to your blows easily. None of these sequences are particularly exciting, but instead you’ll just take care of business as usual while also bopping a tank or a helicopter if it happens to get to close. Defeating a boss isn’t even necessary, but instead it offers a few bonus points to your score. If you really care about your grade for each level and have your mind set on unlocking every last feature in this game then maybe these fights pertain to you, but the majority of gamers simply won’t care at all to boost their score.

Multiplayer Mayhem?

The single-player campaign is unmistakably boring to triumph through alone, so Midway decided to throw in a few multiplayer options as a feeble attempt to spice things up. For starters, players have the option of going through the campaign with two monsters instead of one, so clearly this mode will be plagued with the same problems as before. The only real change lies within the King of the Hill and King of the World modes, which both have up to four players compete for the highest score. The only aspect nice about this mode is that players can now attack each other, and it can be fun to beat on your friends for a little bit. Had there been some type of arena mode which featured monster-to-monster fights exclusively then maybe there’d be something worth playing, but we’re just left with less-than-epic multiplayer modes that won’t keep you coming back for more.

Conclusion

Simply put, if you were considering picking up this game due to its relatively cheap price of $29.99 USD then you should strongly reconsider. There’s hardly anything commendable to say about Rampage: Total Destruction, and unless you were a diehard Rampage arcade fanatic longing for nostalgia, chances are you will only be disappointed after purchasing this. It’s disappointing to see such poor titles released so early in the Wii’s life, and we can only hope that this trend doesn’t continue.