wii rampaged

as promised last post, here’s the recap of rampage: total destruction for wii. it always interests me to see remakes of classic games, but this is a dud in almost every way. every review i’ve read is in pretty much complete agreement, and this review at gamezone.com is typical.

where to start? the game is basically a lazy port of a sloppy remake that first appeared on the PS2 and gamecube (although somewhat astoundingly according to the entry on wikipedia: “Despite the less than positive reaction, the game has sold over one million units according to Midway and the GameCube version has earned Player’s Choice status”). the core game tries to update the classic gameplay but just slaps on modern graphics that were passable on the gamecube and PS2 but just look mediocre on wii. more disappointing is that the game does nothing to improve the monotony of the original’s gameplay, aside from making it less intuitive and easy to control and adding completely pointless goals (such as, eat 10 bicyclists, or find the items hidden in the various buildings) and dull “boss” battles. the addition of special moves may have spiced things up a bit, but every monster has the exact same set of three, which makes the monsters themselves feel like little more than palette swaps. added to that are the completely obscure ways the developers have set up the unlockables: for example, every monster has a special move that can only be earned on one stage, meaning that the chances of you finding it without plowing through the entire campaign mode with every monster or using a FAQ is next to nil. the cityscape graphics are the best part of the game and have a good amount of detail and variety, and the sound effects are decent, although the voice clips quickly wear out their welcome and the lack of music is a big drawback. the wii version suffers from shoehorned-in motion controls, and as everyone has noted, although the nunchuk + wiimote mode is barely tolerable (swinging the remote to do special attacks gets old fast), the solo wiimote mode is completely broken. i tried that mode several times, with zero success; it’s impossible for me to imagine that anyone at midway could have actually mastered that control scheme, unless they happen to be employing virtuoso theremin players.

all in all this was just another failed attempt at remaking a classic. the only plus to the game is that it includes the original arcade version and its N64/playstation-era sequel, rampage: world tour. that game seems like it would be more worthwhile than either of the other two games, although that’s not saying much, although by the time i got to it i was all rampaged out and have left it for another day (definitely not in the near future).

rampage through these rampage: total destruction links!
– i’m completely astounded that anyone would have played through all of this game, let alone written a comprehensive FAQ on it, but here’s a sickeningly thorough FAQ of the gamecube version, on gamefaqs
– apparently there was a rampage-themed puzzle game for GBA. whaaa–??

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