149 · RAMPAGE

• Are you ready for the real thing?
• Introductions
  • ANGRY
• Gameplay
  • The NES version excludes Ralph, reducing the number of monsters to two. And they don’t do anything different
  • Being the monster
  • The army is pretty relentless, but they don’t do much damage
  • Destroying buildings is awkward
  • Can you die?
  • The luxury of home console gaming. Unlimited Continues
• Arcade
  • After 768 days, the game resets back to Day 1. As game developer Brian F Colin stated "the hardware couldn't support that much art and we never figured anyone would get through 768 levels"
• Small Trivia
  • Walt Disney Animation Studios named their film character Wreck-It Ralph after Ralph the wolf, since as the bad guy in his game "Fix-It Felix Jr.", his job was to smash an apartment building so the hero Felix could repair the damage.
  • The Atari Lynx version adds a special fourth character named Larry, a giant rat.
  • In 2017, Basic Fun released a mini arcade port of the NES version of the game with Ralph added.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Rampage World Tour
    • developed for Midway by the original designers, Brian Colin and Jeff Nauman.
  • Rampage 2: Universal Tour
  • Rampage Through Time
  • Rampage Puzzle Attack.
  • Rampage: Total Destruction.
  • 2018 Movie
    • A theatrical film adaptation based on the game was developed by Warner Bros and New Line Cinema, directed by Brad Peyton and starring Dwayne Johnson with John Rickard and Beau Flynn as producers. The film was released on April 13, 2018
• EGL
• Next week - Rampage
• Spy hunter film
• Tetris trilogy
• War of the monsters

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Rampage, are you ready for the real thing?

00:19 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Michael. And I'm Sean. And I'm Sam. And I'm just really angry because I'm on a rampage for this episode. Are you with me, Sam? I was, but I think I clipped a little bit when I shouted into my mic. So now I'll just say yes, I am. Oh, maybe we should make this like a really chill episode then. Maybe this one, like, you know, like, I don't care. Yeah, I'd say that's more my stuff right now. It's a rampage, but like, baby, we're here. We're recording a podcast. It's like, whatever. We do it on our own time.

01:03 Okay. I like that. Mike, I just, I don't, I'm sorry that I'm throwing a wrench into your thing right now. But was that the same exact back of the box as the last game? Yeah, it was. I didn't change it in the show notes because we're just so, we're just so lax this episode.

01:23 You know, like, yeah, right now. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah. No, I did screw up there if you want me to be honest, but I'm not going to change it because I feel like rampage would also be something you would want to prepare for. If two kaiju ever came to your city and attacked it, you know, you would want to be prepared for that kind of thing. So this video game could help you theoretically prepare for a kaiju attack. Yeah, a Pacific Rim, if you will.

01:48 Yeah, I'm a fan. I'm a fan. Okay, yeah. So that's where we should probably start, right? Because this whole thing is based around, like, Godzilla and other kaiju monster films. And, you know, I have a lot of experience. Yeah, King Kong. I have a lot of experience in that area. But like, what about you guys? Sean, you want to start us off? Like, what's your kaiju familiarity?

02:11 Yeah, when you say experience in that area, I'm kind of like scratching my head what you mean by that. But I guess you mean like just kaiju media. Yeah, and if you're a fan of like just the original Gojira or if you're like, hey, I like the campiness of Godzilla versus Mechagodzilla as well. You know, I actually was one of the few people that was introduced to Godzilla with the Matthew Broderick movie, which I later found out made me an outcast. So I didn't hate that movie. But in retrospect, I know that it wasn't the best place to go into it.

02:50 I do like a lot of the Godzilla movies. And I also really loved Pacific Rim. So yeah, I'd say I've got a I've got a healthy kaiju appreciation. And what about you, Sam? My Godzilla experience goes back to Godzilla 2000.

03:09 I think that's what it was called. Yeah, I didn't see it because I was a little kid. And but I did get this toy that was one of the Godzilla eggs, I think. And it comes out of the egg. I think that's part of it. Or I'm getting mixed up with Jurassic Park 3. Yeah, it's like the Matthew Broderick movie. Yeah, they put all the eggs in Madison Square Garden. Yeah. It wasn't Godzilla 2000, but that was the Japanese one. Godzilla 2000. Yeah, he goes up against Orca?

03:41 I forget that. That I don't know. Yeah, I forget the name. There's a good chance of mixing this up with a toy from Jurassic Park 3. But that's... There's a good chance that everything you've ever talked about on this podcast was actually in reference to Jurassic Park 3. Thing is, I've never even seen Jurassic Park 3. It's underrated.

04:00 I just got the one egg toy, but it may be Godzilla. I'm pretty sure it's Godzilla. Anyway, so never actually seen a Godzilla movie, but I did watch Pacific Rim in college my sophomore year on Halloween when I wasn't feeling well. And I didn't want to go out.

04:16 Sean, you and I set the world record for a number of times to fall asleep in a movie theater with Godzilla the 2014 film. Yeah, Godzilla 2014 I was excited for. I don't know if we both got pilled or if we got roofied or if we just really hated that movie. But I think we fell asleep at the same exact time. It was kind of romantic. Yeah, and every time I woke up, I fell asleep within another five seconds. One day, one day they will learn that nobody cares about what happens to the humans in these films. I know. Yeah.

04:56 You'd think that they've got, what was that, Ken Watanabe? Yes. You got Bryan Cranston. For two minutes. For two minutes, but they didn't, I don't think they really, they didn't tell you that it was only going to be for two minutes. No, they did not. They reeled you in with this cast and they just, nobody wrote their characters, so. And they looked at that and they said, you know what would fix this in the sequel? Get the coach from Friday Night Lights. Have him be the star instead.

05:27 He's been in other movies too. He's not just the coach. He's just the coach. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. And we can't lose because we're going to continue on with this episode. We're going to talk about the video game now.

05:39 Rampage, that is. You know, the NES version got a bug to pick already with this thing. You know, it starts with just two monsters instead of three. That's true. That's annoying and we'll get into that. But I would love it if, Sam, if you could just give me like, pretend I don't know anything about Rampage. Give me the easiest overview of what I'm doing in this game. You are a giant monster and your goal is to climb buildings and destroy them. And you gain health by eating people. And you try to avoid getting shot by the military. And eating things that you don't like, like toilets that makes you sick. And chemicals, which are in buildings sometimes.

06:22 And once all the buildings are destroyed, that's it. And then the level's over. And smash as much stuff as you can. Yeah, I think that's pretty clear. I'd be surprised if people aren't familiar with Rampage. It's one of those games that like, I never played at an arcade. But I just knew about it. Like looking at it, like you saw it, you know? I actually, I played it a lot in the arcade. I played this game a lot on the N64 actually.

06:48 Oh, the sequel, right? There was Rampage and Rampage World Tour. I think there were two of them. Because there was one where you could play as a weird lobster guy. Okay, that's cool. Yeah. More monsters, the better. There's World Tour and then I believe there's Universal Tour. Which is obviously a much bigger deal to be going across the universe. I've played both of them. I rented them from video stores for the N64. And I remember really, really liking them. And they were a blast. Yeah, I played these in the arcades whenever I saw it. I think it was World Tour. Maybe not the original.

07:26 But to me it just seemed like, it was a weird, it was a different kind of game. Like it wasn't like go and beat up the bad guys and continue to perform against other things. It was just like, destroy the environment. And I really liked that it was different in that way. And just, I always had like a thing for destructible scenery in games. And I guess this is where it started. So I have fond memories of playing as Lizzie in whatever arcade I was in when I was a child. So we all played as Lizzie. That's just our preferred character? Yes. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. I don't know. Something about the King Kong character is just like cliched. Right? To be a giant ape just like climbing buildings. Is the lizard not?

08:23 Well, the lizard doesn't quite scream like, you know. Godzilla to me is more dinosaur than lizard. Well, so is Lizzie. Like I know he's not, but I'm saying he doesn't look like a lizard. He looks more like a dinosaur. A big dinosaur. He's a big dinosaur, right? So I think the lizard looks different enough. I think that's interesting. I chose Lizzie. Sean, you brought up a great point though there for a minute about, it's all about the destruction of the environment and stuff like that.

08:50 And we haven't played a game where, you know, we kind of have, right? If you think about like Pac-Man, right? The idea is to just clear off the screen with all the dots, right? And we said that was satisfying. And in this one, you don't have to take care of every enemy helicopter and every person who's shooting at you. In fact, you never have to take care of any of them if you're somewhat good at dodging that stuff, I suppose.

09:12 But the real objective of the game is just to smash up all the buildings on the screen until they collapse. And my question now, to make this full circle, is that part satisfying? We talked about how that's satisfying in games where it's clear objective, you do it. And then the screen moves on to the next thing and you just repeat that process. Is that a satisfying process to destroy these buildings?

09:34 I'll say that it's not as satisfying as I know it can be from playing another Rampage game. And I think that it's pretty clunky when your jump is very fixed and the jumping doesn't feel great. You can't do that thing in regular Rampage where you're at the top of the building and you're hitting it from the top to destroy it, which I really missed. I thought that the movement was really clunky, but I think that destroying the buildings is still satisfying, even in this weird lo-fi NES way.

10:10 Yeah, I agree with that. I think that while it's definitely lo-fi and it's not the arcade version, I do have a lot of bones to pick with this version. It still scratches that itch to an extent. Yeah, it's satisfying in the sense of the objective is clear of the number of buildings on the screen, right? It's usually four or five buildings at a time. You knock one of them down at a time. I don't think you can take down multiple buildings at once or anything like that.

10:48 And then those buildings collapse and that's just the screen fades out. And now you're greeted with the next level in another city in that same state. You know, what's not satisfying about this gameplay loop is that the process of destroying these buildings is awkward on this NES version of the game. Sam, you mentioned the jump and I do think that's a big part of it. But even just the actual punching of the buildings when you're scaling them and stuff like that, there isn't a sound effect registered for when you do like initial damage but don't quite destroy the building.

11:27 And that really bothered me for some reason that like you could punch the building but it's like you need to punch it maybe two or three times on certain buildings to get like a hole in them. But you wouldn't necessarily like know that and there's no good feedback for that there. So it just kind of feels like you're not doing anything and you kind of just keep scaling up and then you get bombarded with whatever the helicopters and people are shooting at you and you have to kind of like either accept that punishment as you're trying to continue destroying the building or you need to like say, all right, I need to get off of this building because there's too much going on here and move to something else.

11:59 And scaling the buildings themselves is weird because you don't get to just say like, okay, I'm next to the building. I'm just going to hit up on my D-pad and start climbing it. You have to be facing the appropriate direction of the building from the side at which you're approaching it. So if you want to scale the left side, you have to be facing it, you know, from the right and then being able to scale up. You can't just be within the vicinity of it. I guess that somewhat makes sense. But for an arcade game, that's supposed to be pretty simple and straightforward.

12:27 The logic there kind of annoyed me. Yeah, I'd say that it's it's it's pretty sticky. It's it's there. The controls feel sticky. And the fact that there isn't a lot of feedback when you're near damage that you've already caused kind of also makes it feel a little flat. But I think it's sort of mixed in terms of the control of this game, because while like your jump. It's sort of like at a fixed arc.

12:56 You can it unlike a lot of games with a that takes care of like jumping and interacting while you're in the middle of a jump, you can like climb on. You can just stick to a building if you're if you're hitting up while you're in the jump. So you can you can get a little better at it and you can start to get a feel for those controls, even though they do feel a little sticky.

13:25 And I also think that a pro for the control scheme in this is that while you're attached to a building, you can punch in pretty much any direction that you want. You can punch up. You can punch to the left, to the right. And it has nothing to do with which you're not like locked to the building that you're that you're on. You can also hit buildings that are close enough to the one that you're on. And you can strategically get on the correct building so that you have access. To the other ones and maybe kill three birds with one stone.

13:59 And I also would while I think it might be defending it a little too much. You are a giant monster. And I maybe they should feel a little weighty. I mean, it's I guess this just feels bad, but I can see that like a more sluggish control scheme could make this feel like you are bigger than a person. No, I completely agree with with that aspect of it. And that brings up a good point that I wanted to talk about is just, you know, even forget gameplay for a second. Just being the monster, right? Like that is that is who you are in this game. There's a choice there to be this really powerful kaiju monster attacking the buildings and just kind of, you know, being an unstoppable force.

14:47 One, did you feel that you were this all powerful, unstoppable force? And two, you know, to go off of what Sean said there at the end about being this big, clunky thing. Would you have preferred if instead of instead of being this big monster in the sense of like the bulkiness of it, would you have rather been something else destroying buildings, you know, that would have complemented a different a different side of things if you could have it that way? Huh? That's an interesting question. Are you saying like a small like with very agile like monster? Yeah. Like imagine if, you know, I think about like Hulk, the Incredible Hulk had a game on the

15:37 PS2, I think it was like, I think it was called like Ultimate Destruction or something like that. And it was literally a game where you just play as the Hulk and you're just trying to like just cause a lot of damage. And that was a really fun game to play, mostly because of environmental destruction. Like you mentioned earlier, Sean, that's just like a fun thing to do, especially in like 3D games.

15:55 But, you know, obviously we can't change that. I'm just wondering if like, would that have been more interesting if you were like, if you were the Hulk or if you were, you know, a smaller like dinosaur like character that could do other things, you know, like, do you need to be this big bulky thing that, you know, is essentially like a bullet sponge in the game? Yeah, I think it kind of sells the experience though. Like, yeah, you are, you're a huge bullet sponge and there are times that,

16:24 really the only times that you take massive damage is when like you fall from an incredible height and it kind of sells that you would take that kind of massive damage. And, uh, I think that what you're talking about with like a smaller, like Hulk size thing is a completely different experience. And I think there's room for that kind of game and this kind of game. Like there, it, like, it's not that Rampage should have been that.

16:48 Now, was anybody disappointed though that, um, the, the, the, I cannot remember the, the gorilla's name. What is, what is that big ape's name? I don't know. Anyway, let's just say that the two monsters, yeah, ape guy, let's just say that the two monsters, right? They don't have any differences between them. So it's purely just a cosmetic thing, uh, which is fine. Glad they didn't just say just, you know, you're only getting one character because they're no different anyway.

17:17 Um, but there, there felt like there should have been something, you know, I, I think of the, when they, uh, they eat the TNT on the ground that the, sometimes the soldiers lay out. If you eat that, then you see like the blow fire.

17:31 And I feel like that should have been like a cool special that either like, I don't know, you build up with a meter through destruction or is just something like it's mapped to a specific D pad input. But plus the attack button, you know, uh, similar to like Castlevania, if you map it to that, just have like this cool thing that you can't use too much, but like, it's like a very specific destruction thing.

17:54 Like I, I think if they had that going for them, there'd be a more meaningful choice between the two monsters as opposed to just, you know, well, you, you just look different. I think that, I think that in the newer ones, that is a thing. I think that if you, like, if you were to eat something flammable in, uh, like world tour, uh, and you were on a building, it would damage the building that you were on.

18:19 Uh, I, I can't quite remember because it has been a while since I played it, but there, there actually is a very slight difference between the monsters. Uh, one is apparently faster. I think that's Lizzie and I guess one climbs better, which is the ape guy, but it's almost imperceptible. And maybe it just is that way in the manual and has no actual like difference in the code. Uh, uh, cause I, I tested them both out, really couldn't feel anything. So I think by and large, you're, you're pretty much right. Maybe they speed up the animations.

18:52 Yeah. I was going to say, even that small change is enough for me though. Like that, that almost satisfied me. Your, your manual answer, you know, like if that was true, it's like, okay, well, at least there is like some kind of advantageous thing. Like I, I could see somebody who's not that great at like avoiding the damage and constantly dying would be like, well, maybe I want to be Lizzie so I can be a little faster around the screen, you know? Yeah. Um, but that goes back to a whole nother thing about like, does, does damage and enemies really even matter in this game in the sense of like the enemies are relentless. They're constantly spawning.

19:31 You don't have to deal with them at all. And yes, they take damage to you. But if you're being like somewhat mindful, I suppose you could make it through, uh, the level without much harm. I don't know. I feel like these guys messed me up every single time. I feel like if I'm climbing a building, it was very hard to avoid them throwing stuff at me.

19:52 Yeah. I agree that, uh, yeah, it's hard to avoid the fire, but I like what, what Mike said about being mindful. If you're just careful about what you eat, uh, you'll probably, uh, you'll gain whatever damage you took, uh, just by not eating like the skull and crossbones and just eating all the turkeys. And the people. And the people, especially the people. Yeah. For sure. And yeah, Sam, I wasn't talking about, um, avoiding cause you're right. It's, it's almost impossible given the size of your character and the amount of enemies on screen. And I think that's a, that's a conscious choice that they made to be like, take on an army. This is what's going to happen.

20:33 But you don't have to necessarily like worry about a lot of those smaller, uh, projectiles and stuff like that. It's really just like the TNTs and the helicopters. And then, oh, I never saw the nuke, but you know, there's a bomb. There are missiles that fall from the sky. They're not. Oh, okay. Yeah. Gotcha. I was like, wow, that's pretty dangerous considering that like, that's not how you want to fend off a city, I suppose. But they did it in Cloverfield. And in the Iron Giant. Oh. Spoilers for both. Um.

21:03 God damn it. Um. Also, I feel like if you get hit enough and you lose all your health, it doesn't matter because it just starts you off again. You know, I think your score goes away. Yeah, you get to continue with the zero score. But. Which I appreciate. Yeah, I like that because I just want to keep playing. But I feel like there's no real consequence for not getting hit or for a consequence for getting hit.

21:32 Yeah, totally. This is the first time of like the the luxury of home console gaming is being sold to you of like, hey, remember all those quarters you wasted playing Rampage in the arcade? This one, we just have unlimited continues. Just keep playing for as long. You want to keep smashing buildings? Go ahead. We have 128 levels like good luck. Yeah. You know, doing the same thing over and over again through 128 of those levels before you shut off the NES.

22:00 Yeah, I mean, sometimes, you know, you just want that primal feeling of smashing and doesn't matter that there's no challenge anymore. It's just that it's almost like this this game could be considered more of a toy than like a gaming experience because of that. I don't I don't know. I love that observation.

22:18 I kind of agree with that because another talking point I have here is the whole like dying is a choice thing in this game, too, of like when you actually start to when you when you run out of your health bar and you transform back into the male or female that you, I guess, are. I had no idea that that was like, is that a thing that they reveal to you in the manual? I have. OK, so I was playing this in in the arcades, just thought it was about monsters. I think the first time I died, I was playing as Lizzie. I think that was the first video game depiction of nudity that I had ever seen.

22:59 I mean, I actually can't remember if they're a neuter just in their underwear. But I like I remember like eight year old me or nine year old me like dying and then seeing it shrink to this woman that just sort of like covers up and goes off screen. It was it was super weird. Weird. But I think the lore in the manual is that like it's all food additives that created these mutations.

23:28 I don't know. Maybe it's a it's just a low key like anti GMO think piece game. I think that was the reason. Well, in the hidden in the game's code, but not accessible through like regular gameplay are like character avatar pictures for George and Lizzie. So that's the name of the. Of course, it's George. There you go. Yeah, of course.

23:53 Why not? George George. Curious George, if you will. George of the jungle. And what's what's weird there, Sean, is that you just mentioned that like the girl might have been nude or whatever. But in these character arts, the girl is pictured in like a bikini with lipstick on. And that's very important. The lipstick is like they want you to know she's wearing lipstick. And then and then George is a scientist. And they also make a point to like prove that he's like in a lab coat as a scientist.

24:20 And I don't know something about the idea that one of them was a scientist who may or may not have transformed this beautiful woman into Lizzie the lizard. That's got some is interesting. Yeah. Implication there by Bally Midway.

24:36 But it never made it into the game. So it's technically not canon, I suppose. And instead, they're just naked when they because you could see them. They they have like they have a pretty good animation for it, even though they're so small, you can tell that they're like covering themselves. And trying to scoot off screen. But to get back to like the dying is a choice thing, because that's kind of weird before you before your character gets fully off screen, if you just press the B button, they just grow back into the yeah, into the monster. And so there's absolutely no consequence.

25:09 So you could just say like, you know, I actually want to go right back right now. So you just press the B button and it transforms you back. I guess I just thought that it was like I couldn't interact while I was doing that. Because I think the continue just only shows up like after it's off screen. So I would press B after. OK, interesting. Yeah. And I thought it was a weird thing because I had read about it. And then I just went back to my game and tested it. And it's absolutely true. It's just something you don't think to do. You know, usually when you die, you don't just spam controller input buttons. You're not like, oh, damn it. I died. You know, you don't really do that.

25:42 Huh. You don't make those sound effects either when you hit the buttons. I don't know about. Well, I know you guys. I do. But it's a choice. It's not because the game requires it. It's a choice I made.

26:21 So one thing I feel like all the levels are the same. I feel like, you know, they tell me that this is Sacramento and that this one is Reno, but they have the same buildings in them, you know? Yeah. I know that like they do have a couple different backdrops and like, I guess they have different, I don't know, like Sprite palettes.

26:47 Like, I guess some are some have like a more wintery vibe to them. And I know that if you're in like San Francisco, there's water. But it's it's weird because I know I think I did one where I was in Santa Fe and there was snow on the trees. I don't know. I really don't know if like I didn't play far enough. That's actually math. That's math. You move from west to east. I don't think I played far enough to see if there's anything special for like New York or anything, but it seems like they just cycle through two or three different palettes for like Denver will have mountains in the back or something like that.

27:28 Right now. I don't think that they could have handled if they can't add a third character. There's no way they're doing what I'm about to suggest. But what would have been interesting is like to see the skylines in the background, right? For those particular places. But to even go above that would be, you know, if you're destroying, let's just say New York,

27:48 right? Like the Empire State Building should be one of the buildings that you have to destroy in that. I can neither confirm nor deny that there is an analog for that in this game. But I imagine since most of them are just these rectangle buildings, it's not there. I highly doubt it. Yeah, I don't think they would do that. But that brings up a good question of just like what are some other like important buildings in the United States that would be featured. That's the only one, really. Yeah, really. It's just that and the Sears Tower. Yeah. No, Seattle has that space needle, right? They never hit it. There's some cool buildings in San Francisco also.

28:24 Okay, good. Yeah. So that's good. San Francisco, they didn't have the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. They did have a bridge. Oh, they did have the bridge, though. That's right. Like a little like over a river bridge. That is the Golden Gate Bridge. Yeah, it's over a creek.

28:38 If that is the scale of the Golden Gate Bridge, those buildings are way bigger than the skyscrapers we know. And those people walking on the ground are massive. They're hulks. There's something funny about the people on the ground, though, too, right? Like the civilians and even the soldiers. There's something funny about the idea of like them being prepared of like, okay, so this kaiju comes to these cities. He just he destroys these buildings. We should attack from the inside. Like we should go inside the buildings armed and attack from there. Commandeer all these apartments. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There's something off about that. Dynamite from the window of a building.

29:22 And it never fails, too. Like it's funny. You know, it's funny that these things happen. There's even like guys who will just walk on the street with like a Tommy gun, I assume, and just start shooting at you. And I think that's funny that they're like running into danger like that, thinking that it's going to do anything. You don't see that in Godzilla. They're very, you know, I guess they're in the movies that never happens. This is what the National Guard, I guess. Right. Must be.

29:50 And Sam, just to go back to your every level feels the same. I talked about how there's like 128 levels. If every level feels the same and the only objective is to destroy buildings and the continues are just unlimited, what's the incentive to finish? Just to smash. Catharsis. You know? Yeah. I want to smash. Yeah. I could. You know what? That almost is a satisfying enough answer. But definitely enough to finish. I mean, is there enough to play for a bit and then just to do California again over and over? Maybe get to like Arizona and Nevada. But I couldn't get past that area. It was just like I got my fill.

30:37 You get to see the states, though, like go black. They black out on the on the on the United States map. And I thought like that was something I wasn't expecting. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah. Like an extra touch. You know, because they only do it after every three days because then you've destroyed three cities. In that state. I'm wondering if you're a kid in the 80s, if you can convince your parents it's an educational states learning games. Yeah. Where are the states? You learn 128 different cities and you know exactly which one it is. You probably know California really well because it's the first one you play.

31:12 But. I don't know. I think there's an argument there for some eight year old in the 80s. For any eight year old 80s kids who are listening right now. Give this a shot. See if your parents will buy it. To me, this is the same game as that game where the states are falling and you have to drag them into the correct spot in the map. It's an online web game. Does anyone know that? I don't know that one. They're like, yeah, they're just falling down the screen. So you have to be quick and put them where they are. And you have to be like precise.

31:40 Like they don't just like lock in. So it just shows you how stupid you are when like South Dakota falls and you just have no idea like where that actually is. Wouldn't you rather just smash though? You know, when the rest of the map's blank. Yeah. I'd rather smash. Yeah. I'd rather smash. So this is a better educational game if you will.

31:58 And we will. The arcade version of this game. I did get a chance to play it before we recorded this episode. It's just, it's just night and day. It's better in every sense of the imagination for a video game. Like it's just, it's amazing how like far behind the NES actually is to like good arcade games during this time. Cause like Pac-Man on the arcade and then Pac-Man on the NES. It's like, you're willing to deal with it. The graphics and experience aren't that much better in the, in the arcade.

32:31 Now we're starting to get to like, oh, that's some pretty good looking graphics in, in Rampage on the arcade. And, uh, I can't even play as all the freaking monsters on the NES version. Yeah. It's, it's definitely a downgrade more so than most of the arcade games that we've seen ported. Actually, maybe, maybe that's, maybe not most. There's been some bad ones, but this is definitely included in the bad ones. For sure. And the arcade version has 768 days.

33:01 How many quarters does that take? I can't even imagine. Uh, what's funny is, is that the game resets back to day one after 768. You see in the NES version, when you get to the final level and the whole screen, uh, is finally like conquered of the United States. It just says congratulations. That's it. Congratulations. And then does like a staff credit role. Like legit. You know how like most times we just get like a text box. They actually like animated their credits and stuff. And I'm like, wow, you guys are really proud of yourselves, but no one's ever going to see this screen.

33:36 Especially if there's nothing there to, to look forward to. Like I would have imagined that there'd be some like animated little end screen with like some kind of ending, but it's just as congratulations. That's kind of, it's what you want, right? You want the animated, you want to see the consequences of destroying the United States. And the fact that like the rest of the world didn't help while this was happening is rather insulting. Very. Uh, but, but, you know, you don't get to see that instead you get congratulated for destroying the United States.

34:07 Not unlike what would happen today. Probably. You know, uh, so, uh, sorry. So I was getting into a quote here cause it goes, it doesn't have like an end screen. It just goes back to day one. Um, Brian Collin, one of the developers of the game. Uh, he just went asked about the 768 day thing in an interview. He said, well, the hardware couldn't support that much art and we never figured anyone would get through level 768. So we just cut it there. It's not, it's a conscious decision. It's not like the Pac-Man kill screen thing where you get to like 256 and then you're done.

34:41 Why, why seven, six, eight, why not 700 or 400 for that matter? It's so bizarre, right? It's like you would think, but I guess they did. Like they said, they just, they ran out of space and they just said, all right, we'll just do it here then. Interesting. We'll just end it on our own. Like we, like theoretically based on this assessment, they could have done less levels and included more art. Yeah. That's, but that's probably not true.

35:08 Well, who knows? Yeah. And, uh, the arcade version obviously also lets you play with all three players at once, which is pretty cool. You can, uh, the, the other characters, Ralph, he's like a, uh, it's like a giant werewolf, right? He's a big werewolf boy. Yeah. Now that's a pretty freaking cool character. Okay. Like that's a, that's an idea. It's no Lizzie. No Lizzie. Who, who else would you want? You know, like forget the fact that other characters do exist. Like Sam mentioned that lobster. That sounds pretty awesome.

35:36 I'm thinking like, you know, why not a giant alien? Like those typical, like green aliens with the crazy black eyes, you know, like, like just give me one of those guys on screen. And maybe it has like a UFO that can come down and shoot down a building every now and again. Or like a non copyright infringement version of the, of the big, uh, stay puff marshmallow man. Like that would be pretty cool too. That's a good one. That's a great one. Yeah. Why not? Um, like the Berenstain bears, all of them. Yeah. Family. Yeah. Just control all of them at once.

36:09 Why not? Like a cartoon version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't like a big Arnold Schwarzenegger. As the, as the Terminator or just as Arnold himself? Just, just him. Like wearing a suit. Oh yeah. So it's like, it's like the strongman competition. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh yeah. Actually. Yeah. Wearing, wearing like a speedo. You're right. Yeah. He's jacked. Got it. You guys want some small trivia for Rampage? Why not? Sure. Uh, Walt Disney named their film character Wreck-It Ralph after Ralph the Wolf.

36:44 That's pretty cool. Since the bad guy in his game, Fix-It Felix Jr., his job was to smash apartment buildings so the hero Felix could repair the damage. So that's why they called him Wreck-It Ralph, Ralph the Wolf. You get the idea. He does kind of smash the buildings a lot like they do in Rampage. He's gonna wreck it. Yes. He's gonna wreck it. That's, that's true. Um, the Atari Lynx version of Rampage, which I'm, I'm sure somebody went after they get a hold of 22 AA batteries can play their Atari Lynx again. Uh, that has a special fourth character named Larry. And he's a giant rat. Oh, uh, I think Larry was in later versions as well then.

37:30 Well, the Atari Lynx version of Rampage would come before any sequels. So, um, you know, that would make sense. I have the plot of the, of Universal Tour open now and they have all the different. We're gonna need you in a minute to give us that plot. Uh, because, uh, our, we have the sequels and spinoff section coming up. But one other small piece of trivia. In 2017, the company Basic Fun released a mini arcade port of the NES version specifically.

38:02 But with Ralph, not Wreck-It Ralph, Ralph the Wolf added into the game. So it actually is, finally, as of 2017, possible to play an NES version of Rampage with all three characters in it. But only on, like, a mini arcade machine? Exactly. That's super weird. Yeah. It's just, it's just bizarre. I don't know why it's a port of the NES version and then you also have to, like, go in there and fix the code to, like, add. You know, because it's not in the files for the game. It's not like they cut him. It's just a ROM hack? Yeah, it's very strange. I assume they got, like, the files from Data East or something. This is a Data East game. Oh, I didn't notice that. We didn't say that, but it's true. It's true. Wow.

38:47 Um, it's Data East in the sense that they are the developers of the NES version, you know? They have no, uh, ownership of the arcade game. That makes sense, because I would have, I just don't associate Data East with good, so. With good, right.

39:06 Uh, they are, um, true evil in the world. Um, lawful evil, if you will. They have to be. So, sequels and spinoff section. I'm gonna say the games, but it seems like, uh, you two are very proficient in these games, so. Why don't you just tell me what they're all about? We got Rampage World Tour, which was developed by Midway for the N64, maybe the PlayStation, right? I think it came on PlayStation as well?

39:39 Maybe. Uh, and arcade, and, uh, the original developer, the original designers, Brian Collin and Jeff Nauman, are the makers of this game as well, so it's pretty cool that they didn't just say, like, well, we own the IP, let's just make another game. They actually brought back the original creators to make what would be the next iteration of Rampage World Tour. So, guys, tell me, what is the big deal?

40:03 What's your big deal? I mean, Rampage World Tour, uh, if I remember correctly, because, again, it's been over a decade since I've played it, it, it just, like, it, it just boosted up interactivity with, with the environment. Like, you, uh, there are different ways to destroy the buildings, uh, it's a lot more kinetic, it doesn't feel as stilted. And, uh, I'm sure. You could eat toxic waste, I think, and turn into a different monster, wasn't that right? I think so. Whether that was, whether that was World Tour or Universal, I'm not sure. Oh, yeah, it might have been Universal. It just magnified the insanity.

40:41 And, so that's, like, 2.5D? Yeah, I think they're, they're 3D renders that they turned into sprites. Sort of like a Donkey Kong country. Yeah. And it must have sold well, because then immediately after we get the game that we've been kind of hyping up all through the episode, Rampage 2 Universal Tour. Now, Sam, you said you have the plot for that. I, I assume it's gotta be somewhat interesting. Yeah. I, I pulled it up because I wanted to find out what the monsters were in it, because I couldn't remember anyone else besides the lobster. And it gives me the whole story of it. So, if you want, I can read the whole thing.

41:16 I'll, I'll go quick, though. George, Lizzie, and Ralph have been captured and confined for the world to see. George is held captive in New York City, Lizzie is imprisoned in Tokyo, and Ralph the Wolf is stored in London. References to King Kong, Godzilla, Werewolf London, or possibly an American Werewolf in London. However, Scum Labs, who has just rebuilt their facilities in Salt Lake City, causes another accident that results in three new monsters. Boris, who is a rhinoceros monster. Curtis, a mouse monster. And Ruby, a lobster monster.

41:49 Players choose one of the three original monsters to rescue. The player then uses the characters in the part of the world where the rescuee is being held. They work as a collective to break buildings, eat people, and destroy cars, and this creates competition among players. When a player frees George, Lizzie, or Ralph, then they become playable characters. Once all the monsters are rescued, aliens begin to invade the Earth, leaving the monsters the only ones who can save the planet that they just helped partially destroy.

42:19 After fending off the invasion of Earth, the monsters rescue Miukas, a green cyclops-like alien from Area 51 who joins them before chasing the aliens through space, destroying the aliens' bases throughout the solar system and eventually rampaging through their homeworld and destroying their capital. A news channel covers all the destruction caused by the monsters. At the end of the game, it is revealed that the aliens have a news program, but the alien anchorman who runs the program is eaten by Miukas. Riveting stuff. I really like that. That's a long game. There's definitely a lot there.

43:00 I just never expected so much lore. We went from like, oh yeah, these monsters are actually humans, to then like a whole deep lore that apparently gets continued through three other games. So that's pretty intense that the new series, the revival, if you will, seems to have a legitimate plot to it that I'm sure fans are excited about. So I didn't even know that there were any more games, like any modern versions of, they were just like remasters or something. No, you would think, you would think, but after this we get Rampage Through Time.

43:34 I like that. Rampage Through Time, and that's on the PlayStation, and that one is weird because it's like, it's an action kind of, it looks like an action platformer game with stages. Oh. So it's a little different, but I cannot confirm that. I'm looking at screenshots. I've never seen this game in the wild, so don't quote me on that, but it's the same three monsters that you mentioned, Sam, from Universal Tour. Those are the three that you...

44:12 The new ones. That you, yeah, the new ones that you play as, yeah. Huh. So, interesting, but that's it. And then after Rampage Through Time, the only next step for any arcade game to go, every arcade game, eventually there's a law that requires this, has to get a puzzle game. So Rampage Puzzle Attack on Game Boy Advance comes out. Oh. As everybody expected. And it was met with rave reviews and is considered a classic, right up there with Bust a Move.

44:43 I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. Definitely being sarcastic. Okay. And then return to form with Rampage Total Destruction on PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox. And that's just back to, like, destroy all the buildings, baby. Back to basics, right? Everybody, there is new monsters in this one, from what I understand, but I'm kind of lazy and I didn't look up who they were. So maybe there are, maybe there aren't. I thought there was four player. There, the plot continues from Universal, Tor, and from Through Time. So it just keeps happening.

45:22 And you're thinking, like, okay, well, did they, did they give a good ending? Did they give closure? And it's like, no. Instead, they decided, let's not make another game until the 2018 Rampage movie with Dwayne the Rock Johnson comes out. And then they're like, let's just reboot the whole thing and make a video game based on that movie, specifically for Dave and Busters. What? So it's only available at Dave and Busters. It is not connected to anything other than the 2018 movie.

45:52 And it is very similar to the original game, just with, like, you know, terrible movie-like graphics. And yeah, you play as the monsters, though. You don't play as the rock. Oh, I thought the rock was one of the, okay. See, I heard that a movie came out about this game, and I never have seen a trailer. I've never seen any footage from it. I just imagined that it was going to be just another one of, like, the rocks, like, San Andreas or something else movies. I don't know.

46:23 Yeah. It's funny because I feel like it's weird that this got made, but Spy Hunter is still in movie limbo. Yeah. You know, with the rock, too. The rock was also signed on for Spy Hunter, so he has a knack for these things. And maybe we'll get a knack movie someday. Knack. I mean, you know, knack is back. It's always knack, baby.

46:45 No, where was I going to go with this? I said it's, oh, yeah. So it's weird that the Rampage got a movie. I won't see it. I didn't look up the plot. I can only imagine that it's as bad as Pixels. So I have that going for me. But here's a weird thing. Video game movies for video games that don't deserve movies. Like, we don't really talk about that. You know, most people are like, oh, I can't wait for my favorite game to become a movie, right? Like, everybody wants Uncharted and Halo and The Last of Us. Like, I don't think they need to be, but people want them to be. No one was begging for Rampage, believe it or not. Nobody was saying, where is the Rampage movie?

47:22 You're right. What other video game got this treatment recently? Well, Tetris is getting a trilogy that's in the works. Oh. And I don't know what that would even be about, but I hope it's like space block aliens. That would be pretty cool. It better be Cold War era. I don't know. I'm actually, never mind. I'm not going to watch it. I don't care.

47:43 Yeah. You wouldn't watch the trilogy, though. I think it's one thing to announce that you're making a Tetris video game, a Tetris movie, which, by the way, is not happening. Like, they announced it, but we haven't heard anything. But they also, on that same day, announced a full trilogy. You don't do that unless you're like James Cameron. Alone in the Dark.

48:02 You know, the grandfather of all survival horror games that everyone's forgotten about, aside from, like, the hardcore, pretty much, got a UA Bowl movie that was terrible. I did see it. It had nothing to do with the video game. That was one of those video game movies nobody asked for. Yeah. Speaking of things nobody asked for, it's time for us to give our opinion on Rampage in the Essential Games list.

48:37 Sam, you can start by giving your vote for the Essential Games list. Hey, I'm Sam. This is my vote for the Essential Games list for Rampage. I love it. We should do that all the time. I thought that this game was, you know, cute. It's fun. But it's cathartic. I love that it's just destroying things for the sake of destroying them, and there's no real, I don't know, intelligent objective in the game. But there are way better versions of this game that you can play elsewhere with riveting stories about aliens.

49:15 And so I'd say if you're a Rampage fan, give this a shot. But it's not essential. I'm Sam Smith, and that was my Essential Vote. Thank you. Thank you for closing that as well. We never really quite close things. I usually just say the next person's name. But I imagine, you know, sometimes viewers might think that we cut out what that person had to say. I suppose we could just tack that on to the very end, though. Sean, if you could say today's date and then give your vote so people know that this is real and that I didn't just, you know, use your previous files of your voice to make this, that would be great. The date is December 11th, 2020. I'm Sean.

50:00 And my Essential Vote is thus. This game is it's literally just the bare bones of what Rampage is. Rampage, the arcade game. It has a hell of a lot more character. And even it's just it's just a more well-designed video game. Play the arcade versions, any of them, aside from maybe the puzzler.

50:31 They are they're a lot of fun. But one thing I'll add as a bonus. After I say that this game is not essential, is a recommendation for a more current ish game that I would recommend anyone to play that likes something like this. And that is War of the Monsters for the PS2. War of the Monsters is just like a 3D brawler where you play a bunch of non-copyright infringing versions of kaiju and movie monsters from film past with fully destructible city levels.

51:11 And it's just so much fun. Look it up. I don't know, like emulated if you don't have a PS2. Uh, it's, uh, it's one of my favorite video games from from that era. So do that instead. Yeah, you know, it's funny that I was thinking of almost like this is the equivalent. This NES port of the arcade game is the equivalent of like a mobile game port today. You know, like when games go to like your cell phone and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, this isn't really the game, but I'll play it.

51:44 Uh, that's how I feel about this. Granted, this is, this is translated, you know, it's just that the pro the problem here for me is that this game has like a really fun and silly idea and, uh, has an aesthetic to it. And we said that the environmental destruction is fun and everything like that. Like it's, it's coherent in all of those regards.

52:05 It's just kind of lost to time now. Like I can't say that, like if it was 1988, I'd probably be having a ball with this game. Yeah. But environmental destruction has just been so much more satisfying in games that don't even make it about environmental destruction. I even remember, you know, great, great mention there was war of the monsters, Sean, but I remember even playing, uh, Godzilla destroy all monster melee where you're only supposed to be fighting other monsters, but I thought it was just cool to attack the buildings. Yeah. And that was like more satisfying to just go out and destroy that stuff. Kind of the same in that game too, yeah.

52:39 Yeah. You know, and even thinking about like, uh, you know, just cause those games, like the mission is never destroy things, but the, you can destroy pretty much anything in that game. And it's fun to just sometimes like take things down like that. So even in, even in, uh, games that no longer have that as the objective, if you can do it in those games, it's more fun, uh, there than to do it, uh, in this single arcade game. Granted, it's nice to have a clear objective.

53:09 And I'm sure that like, if the arcade game presents itself to you, you should put a quarter in there and just give it a fun. Cause it is kind of just mindless and silly. I just don't think anybody would say, you know, sometimes we say like, Oh, well the arcade game is like, you know, if there was a hall of fame of arcade games, I'm not quite sure I'd even put this in the arcade hall of fame.

53:28 I'd put paper boy over a rampage. I think, I think that's where I'm at. So maybe I'm a bit biased, but I just don't feel like this NES port is bringing it at all. So it's definitely, it was never up for consideration for me. That said, if you grew up on the NES version of this game, I can understand the love for it. Even today, you know, it's similar to, uh, a lot of games from my childhood on the N64

53:55 and Game Boy where, you know, those games aren't great. And I go back and I play them and I'm like, wow, Kirby's dreamland was like, you know, a 20 minute game, but whatever. I didn't care at the time. Like it's fun. It's, it's silly. So that's kind of like what this game is. It's a fun, it's a fun, silly game that I could see anybody having fun with at the time. Not so sure about today. That's my long rant. Thank you for joining, uh, Michael Esposito's essential games list vote. I'm glad to be a part of it.

54:22 And that's really, that's really all the time we have, uh, this week. And I just want to let you guys know next week is a game called Robo Warrior, which a lot of people on Twitter have been talking to us about saying like, I can't wait till you guys play this one. I never even heard of it. Have you ever heard of Robo Warrior? Never heard of it. I have not. I'm hyped now though. I wonder if it's similar to Bionic Commando. That's a, that's a great question. Uh, is that because you didn't know about Bionic Commando beforehand and then you played that in the room? No, I think it's just like the, the robot, uh, you know. It sounds like synonyms.

54:58 Oh, gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Bionic, Robo, Commando, Warrior. Sure. Robo Warrior being one word though in this game. That changes everything. Yeah. It's, it's combined. Um, anyway, it's, it's an interesting game. Don't look up too much on it because otherwise you'll get a lot spoiled for the episode. There's a lot of interesting trivia and, uh, stuff going on in this game, but that's going to be a good episode for us. And then we have our Christmas spectacular skate or die releasing on Christmas day. I remember playing that game for on Christmas every year.

55:32 All right, there you go. So yeah. And I'm sure we'll do something, uh, Christmas oriented. I don't think we'll be able to get a visit from Santa because he's supposed to be like delivering Christmas gifts during that time. So that would be rather rude of him to show up on our podcast.

55:49 But I don't know. Maybe one of the elves can show up or something. Yeah. And don't forget the 158 episodes spectacular or whatever. 153rd episode spectacular. We've, we've just been saying numbers, but it's going to happen. It's a big episode. I won't tell you what it is, but you're going to love it. The 153rd spectacular. Everybody's been talking about it. Tell your neighbors, have you heard that nostalgia is doing a 153rd episode spectacular? And I guarantee you, they will say, of course I heard that last week. They will. When they said it in the previous episode. Yeah. Because you need to catch up on, you can't just pick and choose which episodes you listen to. You have to listen to all of them.

56:32 Yeah. People are always telling me like, oh, I'm all caught up on the nostalgia show now. And I like, can you guys just release like more episodes? And what I say is like, no, you're not, you're not all caught up because you never tweeted us the secret codes from the episodes. So you have to go back and listen to these particular sections where we give out secret codes. And I'm not giving one this time, so you can shut it off now.

56:57 But last week I did give a secret code and I haven't gotten a single tweet about that yet. Check that at us. It unlocks a special, special content. There's a calendar that we can send you of us in various states of undress. But you only get that if you send in five secret codes. So hopefully we only gave away four. Oh, I, I already took my pictures. Oh, great. Great. And I'm Michael Esposito. You can find us at NostalgiaCast on Twitter and you can find me at Esposito Film on Twitter. I'll be talking to you soon. Bye. baum