Rampage (NTSC)
Rampage is a 1986 arcade game by Bally Midway. Players take control of gigantic monsters trying to survive against onslaughts of military forces. Each round is completed when a particular city is completely reduced to rubble.
Monsters can jump and climb buildings, and punch enemies and buildings. Buildings also take damage when jumped on by a monster. The player's monster receives damage from enemy bullets, sticks of dynamite, shells and so forth, punches from other monsters and from falls. Damage is recovered by eating appropriate food such as fruit, roast chicken, or soldiers. If a monster takes too much damage, it reverts back into a naked human and starts walking off the screen sideways, covering its genitals with its hands. While in this state, the player can be eaten by another player. If the player continues, the human mutates back into the monster, or flies in on a blimp if off-screen, with a full life bar.
Smashing open windows generally reveals an item or person of interest, which may be helpful or harmful. Helpful items include food or money. Dangerous ones include bombs, electrical appliances, and cigarettes. Some items can be both; for example, a toaster is dangerous until the toast pops up, and a photographer must be eaten quickly before he dazzles the player's monster with his flash, causing it to fall. When a civilian is present waving their hands out a window signaling for help, a player's points meter rapidly increments when the civilian is grabbed. Each player can hold only one type of person: George can hold women, Lizzy can hold men, and Ralph can hold businessmen.
Rampage is set over the course of 128 days in cities across North America. The game starts in Peoria, Illinois and ends in Plano, Illinois. In Plano, players receive a "mega vitamin bonus" which heals all the monsters and provides a large point bonus. After this, the cycle of cities repeats five times. After 768 days, the game resets back to Day 1.
Some of the home port versions of the game start in San Jose, California and end in Los Angeles, California after going all around North America. The rampage travels through two Canadian provinces and forty-three U.S. states. Only Connecticut, Delaware, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Vermont are spared.
Monsters can jump and climb buildings, and punch enemies and buildings. Buildings also take damage when jumped on by a monster. The player's monster receives damage from enemy bullets, sticks of dynamite, shells and so forth, punches from other monsters and from falls. Damage is recovered by eating appropriate food such as fruit, roast chicken, or soldiers. If a monster takes too much damage, it reverts back into a naked human and starts walking off the screen sideways, covering its genitals with its hands. While in this state, the player can be eaten by another player. If the player continues, the human mutates back into the monster, or flies in on a blimp if off-screen, with a full life bar.
Smashing open windows generally reveals an item or person of interest, which may be helpful or harmful. Helpful items include food or money. Dangerous ones include bombs, electrical appliances, and cigarettes. Some items can be both; for example, a toaster is dangerous until the toast pops up, and a photographer must be eaten quickly before he dazzles the player's monster with his flash, causing it to fall. When a civilian is present waving their hands out a window signaling for help, a player's points meter rapidly increments when the civilian is grabbed. Each player can hold only one type of person: George can hold women, Lizzy can hold men, and Ralph can hold businessmen.
Rampage is set over the course of 128 days in cities across North America. The game starts in Peoria, Illinois and ends in Plano, Illinois. In Plano, players receive a "mega vitamin bonus" which heals all the monsters and provides a large point bonus. After this, the cycle of cities repeats five times. After 768 days, the game resets back to Day 1.
Some of the home port versions of the game start in San Jose, California and end in Los Angeles, California after going all around North America. The rampage travels through two Canadian provinces and forty-three U.S. states. Only Connecticut, Delaware, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Vermont are spared.
Rampage (NTSC)
Technical
CPU
- maincpu M6502 (@ 1 Mhz)
- pokey POKEY (@ 1 Mhz)
Chipset
- TIA (@ 0 Mhz)
- POKEY (@ 1 Mhz)
Display
- Orientation Yoko
- Resolution 255 x 225
- Frequency 60 Hz
Controlers
- Number of players 2
- Number of buttons 2
- Kind of controler joy (8 ways)
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Rampage (NTSC) Screenshots
Description
Up to three simultaneous players control the monsters George (a King Kong-like gorilla), Lizzie (a Godzilla-like dinosaur/lizard), or Ralph (a giant arctic wolf ), created from mutated humans. When they were humans, George was a normal middle aged man, Lizzie was a young woman, and Ralph was an elderly man. They were experimented on at Scumlabs. As monsters, they need to raze all buildings in a high-rise city to advance to the next level, eating people and destroying helicopters, tanks, taxis, police cars, boats, and trolleys along the way.
Ports
Rampage was ported to most home computers and video game consoles of its time, including the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS/IBM PC, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, NES, and Sega Master System. The Atari Lynx version adds a special fourth character named Larry, a giant rat. The NES version excludes Ralph, reducing the number of monsters to two. Rampage was included as part of the Arcade Party Pak for the PlayStation in 1999. In 2003 Rampage was included Midway Arcade Treasures, a compilation of arcade games for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. This game is also available as a bonus feature in Rampage: Total Destruction. Tiger Electronics released a handheld LCD version of the game in the 1990s. Rampage was also ported to iOS as part of the Midway arcade app.
The Amstrad CPC port (published by Activision) has in-game music ripped from the basement level of the arcade game Trojan, though strangely Trojan was never ported to the Amstrad, a finished version was completed for the ZX Spectrum by Clive Townsend and was to be published by Elite Systems, but was never officially released.
In July 2000, Midway licensed Rampage, along with other Williams Electronics games, to Shockwave for use in an online applet to demonstrate the power of the shockwave web content platform, entitled Shockwave Arcade Collection. The conversion was created by Digital Eclipse.
Unlike the original arcade game, most of the home ports (such as the NES, Sega, and Atari Lynx versions) actually end, rather than repeating levels endlessly.
About a decade later, a sequel was released entitled Rampage: World Tour, later followed by console-exclusive games including Rampage 2: Universal Tour, Rampage Through Time, and Rampage Puzzle Attack. The latest game in the series is Rampage: Total Destruction.
The Amstrad CPC port (published by Activision) has in-game music ripped from the basement level of the arcade game Trojan, though strangely Trojan was never ported to the Amstrad, a finished version was completed for the ZX Spectrum by Clive Townsend and was to be published by Elite Systems, but was never officially released.
In July 2000, Midway licensed Rampage, along with other Williams Electronics games, to Shockwave for use in an online applet to demonstrate the power of the shockwave web content platform, entitled Shockwave Arcade Collection. The conversion was created by Digital Eclipse.
Unlike the original arcade game, most of the home ports (such as the NES, Sega, and Atari Lynx versions) actually end, rather than repeating levels endlessly.
About a decade later, a sequel was released entitled Rampage: World Tour, later followed by console-exclusive games including Rampage 2: Universal Tour, Rampage Through Time, and Rampage Puzzle Attack. The latest game in the series is Rampage: Total Destruction.
Controversy and concerns of copyright infringement
In the year 1986, a few months after the release of the home editions of Rampage, US Gold published a similar game called Ramparts on various home platforms, including Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. This videogame was widely considered as a ripoff of Rampage, using the exact mechanics with a different setting.
Film adaptation
On November 18, 2011 it was announced that a theatrical film adaptation based on the game is in tentative development by New Line with John Rickard set to direct.
