Rampage Puzzle Attack

"Puzzle game based on arcade featuring brain dead violence feels...brain dead."

Rampage: Puzzle Attack(RPA) doesn't incorporate many of the ideas from original Arcade game Rampage into the game play. But it still manages to feel like you're chewing some very dull gum that loses its flavor after a minute, mainly because there's nothing else to do. For a puzzle game it forces you into maneuvers far too simple and pedantic, and you're left feeling as though you cheated a bit as you zip through it. It has some flashes but is ultimately as uninspiring as the original, where you controlled monsters climbing up buildings ad infinitum, smashing the small armies that shot at you and innocent helpless people for points.

You don't get to be violent in RPA, although some might agree that dropping blocks endlessly can be just as mindless if we only let it. In each of four modes you drop pairs of blocks(adjusted as you move left/right and push A to swap an adjacent pair) from a row of six into the sort of well that shows up in many puzzle games. Blocks of the same color will lump. A shiny gem-block comes by frequently, and when it latches on to a patch of regular blocks of the same color, they all disappear. Everything that can drop, does, and chain reactions are not only possible but lucrative. Marathon mode has you do this endlessly, with lines pushing up from the bottom ever quicker, and as I saved it until last I got bored before the structure reached the top for game over. The other modes have promise, though, and they cut off after fifty puzzles, in levels denoted by ten cities around the world that the monsters are allegedly trying to destroy. With infinite continues you can plow through without having to worry you got outfoxed by what seems to be a relatively simplistic game. Here they are.

Puzzle Mode gives you a fixed number of moves to wipe out all the colored blocks in the space below. There may be dingy gray blocks suspended in midair to block or help you, but you're given a fixed set of your own colored blocks to drop. You must retry until you succeed. Often you have to use the dingy blocks that replace what you drop in order to solve a puzzle, and you learn pretty quickly that using gem-blocks immediately does no good. There are some simple clever chain reactions and the last puzzle is nicely designed, but even new ideas that come around are a bit too obvious.

Clear Mode makes you clear all blocks from below your . You may have some tough formations to start, and when there's a narrow tunnel down it may not be clear what to do. One big break you get is that when a color disappears from the field for two moves, it doesn't pop back up unless you drop it from your tray above. The game would be too random otherwise, but sadly, halfway through you realize that your major trick is trying to play off a chain reaction of the final two colors. But again it's not terribly exciting and despite some clever puzzles that box you in at the beginning, the game's forced move sequence(gems always appear in a specific order) allows for a bit of cheating, or what feels like it. Which you don't even need.

Until Rescue Mode. This is the most involved of the three, and after every ten puzzles you unlock a new weird monster who bangs on the side and distracts you when you take out blocks with a gem. Here it can actually hinder you as the puzzles are time-oriented. If you've gotten through Clear Mode, the first half is a relative breeze, but on the later levels you are greatly aided by knowing how the blocks fall. Which make things trivial, and the solutions are never as elegant as in Puzzle Mode. You can actually leave blocks on the board and solve it, but none of them can be touching the roof of the monster's cage on the bottom. Dumping useless squares is often the only way to win in a pinch and it further ruins any feeling your solution was exact. Oh, there's a little story as you go along, but it's devoid of creativity or any semblance of humor.

And the most creativity I found I used was when I tried to determine the colors. The more I play my GBA, the more I wonder if I am going color-blind. Green and blue blend in nastily(I determined the blue blocks were a bit puffier,) but when I found I could not tell the difference between the blinking yellow and purple gems, I became seriously worried. They're designed poorly and look terrible--what less could you ask for? That this rarely cost me in Puzzle and Clear Modes despite happening many times when I got lazy shows how RPA doesn't offer much abstract challenge. The other nuisance was the score tally that popped up when I zapped blocks near the top of the screen. I couldn't see the colors of the blocks in the tray. It felt like I was trying to swat an exceptionally pesky fly. I in fact had to do so while playing and was much happier about the break than I should have been. As for the sound, you don't need it for clues, so you can drown the jackhammer noise that happens every time you do something right.

For much more spontaneous action, try Puyo Pop, which has the same linking concept but is much more fun even if it doesn't last as long. But if don't mind action tepid and interrupted by mini-mutants banging around the side of your play field, RPA isn't the worst way to waste your money. It forces you into occasional finesses to solve puzzles, and you can even cut down some busy work if you turn your brain off autopilot. It just isn't very easy to once you journey into the doldrums of similarly pedestrian levels, so RPA is unsatisfying, especially with all the fine and simple puzzle games available on the GBA.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/03