Rampage : Total Destruction

Rampage: Total Destruction for PlayStation 2 is a side-scrolling action game from Pipeworks Software and Midway, released in North America in April 2006. It revisits Midway's long-running Rampage formula by putting enormous mutated creatures in city streets and making destruction the central objective. The PS2 release supports one or two players locally, allowing a solo player or a pair of monsters to work through its world-spanning path of urban mayhem.

The story begins at Scum Labs, where the experimental Scum Soda changes test subjects into giant creatures. George, Lizzie, and Ralph return as the familiar ape, reptile, and wolf-like stars, while additional monsters can be unlocked during play. The premise gives the campaign a cartoonish corporate-disaster backdrop: the escaped subjects tear through city after city while Scum Labs tries to contain the consequences of its product.

Each stage is built around wrecking a district as thoroughly as possible. A monster can climb building fronts, punch and kick structures, grab people or objects, leap into position, and use its roar. Cars and other vehicles can become projectiles, while food and pickups help sustain a creature during a run. Destroying scenery produces the points that drive the game, but players must also watch the action around them and keep their monster active amid military resistance and hazards.

The PS2 controls are arranged around direct, arcade-like actions: the left analog stick or directional pad moves the monster, Circle grabs, X jumps, Square kicks, and Triangle roars. Climbing enables more attacks against the face of a building, making vertical movement part of clearing a block rather than merely a way to reach a higher target. As a player performs well, a special meter builds toward character-specific powers, including temporary Rampage-style boosts and roar-based abilities.

Campaign mode links the destruction across a sequence of cities and is where much of the unlockable content is earned. Hidden tokens and successful runs open further monsters and abilities, giving repeated city-smashing a progression layer beyond a single high score. The PlayStation 2 version also includes competitive Master of the City and Master of the World modes for its two local players, plus a timed challenge mode. In the competitive modes, the contest is not simply survival: players compete to claim districts or prevail across a series of city-destruction rounds.

Rampage: Total Destruction keeps its perspective fixed on the immediate spectacle of a monster and a destructible skyline rather than turning Rampage into a three-dimensional adventure. Its city-by-city layout, character collection, wall climbing, power meter, and local multiplayer expand on the older arcade concept while preserving its simple goal of smashing everything in reach. As a nod to the series' history, the PS2 package also contains playable bonus versions of the original Rampage and Rampage World Tour, placing this 2006 entry alongside two earlier forms of Midway's monster-destruction series.