Rampage

Created by Midway Games' Brian Collin and Jeff Nauman, Rampage was first developed in 1986. The premise is that players take control of giant monsters that travel around the world and destroying everything on sight. Monsters can jump, climb and smash buildings; eat citizens; and demolish vehicles. There have been many monsters introduced over the years but the three main ones are George the gorilla, Lizzy the lizard and Ralph the werewolf.

Rampage (1986)

The original Rampage made its first debut as an arcade game. Up to three simultaneous players control the monsters George, Lizzy and Ralph. Storywise, there is not much plot to the game, only a brief description that these monsters were once humans that mutated into giant and uncontrollable monsters due to a failed experiment at Scumlabs. 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. After this, the cycle of cities repeats five times. After 768 days, the game resets back to Day 1.

Rampage has since been ported to many consoles including Sega Master System, NES, Atari Lynx, Commodore 64 and most recently; the iOS.

Rampage: World Tour (1997)

About a decade later, Midway released Rampage: World Tour, which is a remake of the original arcade game. Players once again take control of George, Lizzy and Ralph and this time, the game introduced two new characters: Eustace DeMonic, CEO of Scumlabs and the main antagonist, and Dr. Betty Veronica, Scumlabs employee who keeps track of the monsters' movements.

Unlike the original, World Tour has an end with only 127 levels to complete. The last level takes place in outer space on a lunar base where Eustace DeMonic transforms himself into a giant monster to battle against George, Lizzie and Ralph, but is defeated and dies. Dr. Veronica tries to kill the three monsters with a ray gun on a spaceship but ends up shrinking them and bringing them back to Earth unwillingly.

Both DeMonic and Dr. Veronica are never mention in newer Rampage games ever since.

Rampage: Universal Tour (1999)

Universal Tour is a direct sequel to World Tour. George, Lizzie and Ralph have finally been captured for the world to see. George is held captive in New York City, Lizzie is imprisoned in Tokyo, and Ralph is stored in London. Scumlabs, who has just rebuilt their facilities in Salt Lake City, causes another accident that results in three new monsters: Curtis, a mouse, Boris, a rhinoceros, and Ruby, a lobster. Like the original trio before them, Curtis, Boris and Ruby travel far and wide to locate the captive monsters - causing destruction along the way. Once players have rescued George, Lizzie and Ralph, aliens begin to invade the earth, leaving the monsters the only ones who can save the planet they just helped partially destroy.

After fending off the invasion on Earth, the monsters rescue Myukus (a cyclops-like alien) from Area 51 before chasing the aliens through space, destroying the aliens' bases throughout the Solar System and eventually rampaging through their homeworld.

Rampage Through Time (2000)

After the events of Universal Tour, the world is again rebuilding but to make the process quicker, Scumlabs invent a time machine to send people back in time to fix the mess without having to do it in the present. Unfortunately, the monsters, who have somehow made it back to Earth, appear and run into the machine. They begin terrorizing the past, present, and future, messing up the time stream.

Rampage Through Time introduces a new character called Harley, a warthog.

Rampage: Total Destruction (2006)

Total Destruction is a completely new game and not a followup to its predecessors. It has 30 (40 on the Wii) playable monsters total. Total Destruction was released for the PlayStation 2, Gamecube and Wii.

Monster List