****Continued Spoilers of the Rampage series ahead****
Hello again and welcome back to this series overview on Rampage. In the last blog I took a look at both the original arcade game that started it all and it's sequel/remake, Rampage World Tour. Both games were very similar to each other which in the long run hurt World Tour despite it adding a number of new features. Rampage World Tour would sell well enough that a sequel would be made. The game picks up after the events of World Tour. George, Lizzie, and Ralph have been returned to normal size. George is transferred to a holding facility in New York City, Lizzie in Tokyo, and Ralph in London. Think about all of that for a second. See if you can figure out the three references there. I'll throw them out there at the end of the segment if you haven't figured it out by then. Along with the world, Scumlabs has been rebuilding until disaster would strike once again. The Scumlabs facility in Salt Lake City would have yet another toxic event and accidentally unleash three new mutants on the world. Rampage Universal Tour has begun.
Boris becomes a massive Rhino, Curtis turns into a huge rat (not to be confused with Larry from the Atari Lynx port of the original arcade game), and Ruby turns into a huge lobster-like creature. The three set out to do what Scumlabs mutants do best. Destroy everything. This time though they also have the objective of freeing George, Lizzie, and Ralph from their respective prisons. One by one, the original three mutants join the three newcomers and continue to devastate the world until..... Aliens invade.... Suddenly the mutants start to defend the world they just wrecked and chase the aliens to Area 51 where a mysterious cyclops mutant named Myukus is released. Myukus and the other mutants then chase the aliens to their home planet where the mutants return the favor of invading to the aliens and devastate their cities.
The gameplay is more of the same. Go from city to city and destroy it. There is no World Tour feature this time as you will be focusing on releasing the original mutants instead of just trying to wreck the world. Much like World Tour, Universal Tour adds some new features and also expands on the previous game. This time around there are over seven playable characters though the last two are just recolors of Myukus with different names and stats. Yes, each character now has different stats for climbing, power, and overall walking speed which adds a bit more variety. Bonus stages return, but are more varied and involve things from long jumping to smashing buildings quickly, to eating a number of people. All of these bonus stages are far more entertaining in multiplayer though. Under the health meter you will notice a second bar. That is actually a power meter that when filled can unleash an incredibly powerful attack that can level even the largest building in one shot. The attack varies from character to character. For example, Boris charges forward and slams into a building while Ruby spins like a tornado shredding anything in her path. Boris's attack pretty much guarantees a building coming down, but Ruby's does more widespread damage.
The cities are actually expanded again, but not in size. Actual landmarks have been added into the game. For example, when you visit London, you will find yourself climbing and bringing down Big Ben and the Towers of London. In New York City you will take down the Empire State Building and World Trade Center (this game came out before 9/11). In Washington D.C. you'll have the opportunity to take it to the political system and destroy both the Capitol building and the White House. That'll get some frustration out right? Time however, has become of the essence as the world's (and alien) military will send bombers to attack you if you take too long in a city. Unlike previous installments in the series, you only have a few lives so getting hit by those bombers will severely hamper your efforts. Another update to the cities is their backgrounds. Unlike World Tour which offered generic city backgrounds, Universal Tour tries it's best to emulate what the city looks like, even in the background. That means if you are in New York City, you may recognize the design of some of the buildings in the background. It's a small change, but meaningful as far as immersion goes. One final change to the cities is weather. In a nice change, you'll sometimes be destroying cities during sunny days, or stormy days, or in the black of night. It gives you the feeling that time is passing as you move around the world. That's something that up until this point was lacking. I once thought to myself in Rampage World Tour if the mutants just decided to attack at the same time in a different place everyday. That feeling is dealt with with this small, but impactfull change.
Universal Tour improves on World Tour in every way. The graphics are better, the sound is better, the gameplay is.... marginally... better, and the cast of characters is better. That being said, a lot of the features that were added in were basically the other half of what should have been in World Tour. Honestly, if World Tour came out today, Universal Tour would be DLC as opposed to it's own game. That's not a knock on Universal Tour, just a reminder of where World Tour fell short and yeah, a shot at a lot of half finished modern games needing tons of DLC (Star Wars Battlefront) or day one patches. I digress... Rampage 2: Universal Tour was the best in the series at the time and remains my personal favorite.
There are two more games in the Rampage series that I am going to look over. I will not be looking at Rampage Total Destruction as it did not appear on any of the consoles I normally cover here, nor have I actually played it... Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the final installment in my Rampage overview!
No comments:
Post a Comment