Rampage World Tour is a 1997 action video game developed by Game Refuge and published by Midway Games for arcades. It is the sequel to 1986's Rampage, and was designed by Brian Colin and Jeff Nauman, who designed the original game. Ports were released for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, and Microsoft Windows. It was re-released on Midway Arcade Treasures 2 and included in Rampage: Total Destruction.
Plot
The evil and corrupt Scumlabs causes an accident that unleashes three giant monsters named George, Lizzie, and Ralph. The trio begin to destroy all of Scumlabs' bases scattered throughout the world and kill its employees. In the last levels, Scumlabs CEO Eustace DeMonic turns himself into a monster in an attempt to combat George, Lizzie, and Ralph, but is defeated during a battle on a lunar base. After this, the only surviving Scumlabs employee, Dr. Elizabeth Veronica, tries to disintegrate the monsters with a ray gun on her spaceship, but it instead shrinks them to a miniature size, and they wind up inside her ship. George and Ralph pose on the shelves, while Lizzie bounces atop of Veronica's breasts (though the latter portion is censored on home ports).
Gameplay
thumb|left|The player's goal is to destroy buildings; as pictured here in the arcade version, George is smashing a building as a tank approaches.
Like in the first Rampage game, the goal of every stage is to destroy all the buildings in each city while avoiding or destroying the military forces. If the player takes too long in destroying the city, jets will fly in and bomb the remaining buildings, ending the stage with a lower score.
In the first level, Peoria, a tourism billboard cycles through different regions in the country (Northeast, Southwest, etc.). Destroying the billboard when it is showing one of these regions will send the player in that direction. Players may also choose to eat or ignore the "World Tour" power-ups and control which country they can visit. After getting a World Tour power-up, the next few levels take place in a foreign location until a Scumlabs plant is destroyed. Purple radioactive waste temporarily transforms the player into a super monster known as V.E.R.N. The game will not end until every Scumlabs city has been destroyed, which may cause some erratic traveling around towards the end of the game (including multiple world tour trips if the players have missed or purposely kept from getting world tour flags).
The arcade version supports up to three players simultaneously. Though it was announced that the PlayStation version would also support three players, both the PlayStation and Saturn versions allow only two players.
Release
The home ports were published in Europe by GT Interactive. Shortly after the home ports were released, Rampage World Tour was exhibited at the JAMMA arcade show in Japan, but garnered little interest. Despite this, the game was never released in Japan.
Reception
Next Generation reviewed the arcade version of the game. They derided the decision to continue using sprites for the graphics instead of polygons, concluding that "Rampage World Tour seems aimed at satisfying gamers' yearning for past titles like Space Invaders or Pac-Man. Fair enough, but all this remake will accomplish is to make gamers yearn for the original more than ever."
Critics agreed that the console ports are nearly arcade-perfect, However, a different GamePro critic reviewed the Saturn version, and opined that the game's "utter failure to take advantage of new technology and add new elements to the original Rampage is inexcusable." A third GamePro critic, reviewing the Nintendo 64 version, likewise found that the game added little new and suffers from repetitive gameplay and music, and a lack of variety in the buildings which players spend most of their time demolishing. Next Generation reviewed the Nintendo 64 version of the game, and stated that "Despite the three-player mode, no amount of graphic flash or nostalgia can improve a style of gameplay whose day has passed."
Charles Ardai of Computer Gaming World noted that the PC port of the game had performance and graphics issues when played in full-screen mode. The best performance was achieved when the screen was set to a postcard-sized frame. He found the action to be basic, although there is a variety of animation. He added that it is "suffused with all the monster movie fun that was conspicuously lacking in the recent Godzilla film".