Rampage 2: Universal Tour

"9 parts repetition + 1 part boring = Not so great game."

Introduction:
When I first started playing Rampage 2: Universal Tour I liked the game. It was a fun multiplayer title that I could play with friends who liked playing bad games. But after a short while, a very short while, I started to hate it. The game is repetitive, generic, and all around terrible. Destroying a city can only be done so many times before you want to move on to another title.

[Note: You can use this review for Rampage: World Tour too! Midway didn't bother to make any real changes for the sequel. Just toss in some new characters and call it a new game! Joy!]

Graphics: 5/10
The graphics are by no means terrible, just not up to what the Nintendo 64 could do. They're just a more advanced version of the NES game. The graphics are a mix of 3D and 2D. My main complaint is how the cities lack variety. The same buildings appear over and over and over and over and over in every city. The White House appears in dozens of cities. So does other historical buildings that should only be in one area. Couldn't Midway have taken a few more minutes to add some more buildings/houses/anything.

Music/Sound: 2/10
After doing a couple hundred levels of the EXACT same gameplay and the same generic music... lets just say that it is not good. At all.

Gameplay: 3/10
The gameplay is the exact same as it is in every single Rampage game thus far. It plays just like the NES version (which is equally as bad). The gameplay would have a score of 6 or 7 if you rate the game entirely on the first 1 hour of gameplay. (A whole hour is stretching it). After a while it just gets boring. Players get tired of doing the EXACT same thing over and over again. Midway tried to break the tediousness by putting in some short mini-games randomly between levels. These give the player a short break from city-destroying, but its far too little to save this title. By the way, is there actually anyway to get a Game Over in this game? I've tried so hard.

Story: 1/10
You play as some people who were turned into monsters and you have to go save the people from the first game. (Upon doing so you can play as them). And what do all people who are turned into 40 foot monsters do? They destroy everything they can. The writers at Midway probably thought up the story as they took a bathroom break or something. I doubt they dwelled on it for over 5 minutes.

Replayability:1/10
It would be amazing if you had the patience to play all the way through this sleep-inducing game which has a bajillion levels that have no difference at all.

Overall: 4/10
I tried to like Rampage 2: Universal Tour. I really did. But the more I played it, the more I hated it. Playing Rampage 2 is like playing tic-tac-toe for 18 hours straight. It gets freaking boring.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/05