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Good: lots of interesting-looking monsters

Bad: Controls, lack of improvement, insane amount of repetition

Best Objective Ever: "Eat 10 Mimes"

Generally speaking, if a franchise has survived 20 years in the videogame industry, it's usually something special. Mario, Zelda and Metroid are some of the titles in this elite group, and they're all still going very strong (both in terms of sales and gameplay quality). One series proves to me that you can last two decades without being spectacular: Rampage. While not as prolific as the aforementioned titles, the series has been around since the arcade game debuted in 1986. Mario evolved and introduced 3D gaming as we know it. Zelda followed suit with one of the greatest games of all time (Ocarina of Time) and another huge one on the way. Metroid proved the naysayers wrong and went first-person to spectacular results. Rampage, on the other hand::..well, you're still a big monkey that punches buildings until they collapse.

But wait! In this one, you can play as over 25 giant mutations that punch buildings until they collapse! Innovation! Sarcasm aside, Rampage: Total Destruction is a new coat of paint on a gameplay formula that hasn't changed since 1986. In fact, this is readily apparent thanks to the inclusion of both the original Rampage and 1997's Rampage: World Tour. Play through all three of them in chronological order and all you'll notice is slightly better graphics as the series goes on.

This incarnation features your monsters in a pseudo-3D plane, which really does nothing for the gameplay outside of making it more difficult to control. Cars and people that appear to be close enough to pick up will oftentimes be too far behind or in front of your character. It's also much harder to maneuver around the buildings as you climb. The old titles let you climb up the sides only, and featured easily identifiable destruction points for the structures. In Total Destruction, you can climb the fronts as well, and it's much harder to get a sense of where you should attack the building in your efforts to make it collapse.

The added Wii controls are as basic as they get, and doesn't really add anything to the experience. You can move the Wii-mote from side-to-side or smash it down to do basic attacks, but it's not really that much more immersive than repeatedly tapping the button.

Different cities are divided into multiple blocks to destroy, although they all look almost identical to one another. Playing through the different cities, you'll just want to get it over with after 2 or 3 blocks. I'd seriously be surprised to find a gamer that doesn't get bored of this title by the end of the first city (Las Vegas). The only attraction I can think of is the addition of tons of new characters. You essentially collect them all as playing cards, complete with stats on the back.

Speaking of the creatures, they're all well-designed and interesting to look at. It's not just the monkey, lizard and wolf anymore, Total Destruction features a ram, blowfish, lion, and many more. For huge fans of monster movies, these new characters may be a slightly nice distraction, but it doesn't amount to much in the long run. In fact, fans of monster movies would be much better off purchasing War of the Monsters. That title featured creatures destroying cities in a much more interesting and entertaining fashion than Rampage ever has.

Other than the monster design, there is almost nothing to talk about on the technical end of things. Buildings are uninspired and dull, enemies are generic and destruction effects are wholly underwhelming. The audio sounds like it could have come straight out of a Nintendo 64.

I'll admit, I had some fun back in elementary school with the original Rampage. My cousin and I would always sit down and attempt to beat the whole game in one sitting back on the NES. You know what happened every time? We got about a fourth of the way into it, got really bored and popped in something more interesting. If the original title got stale that quickly, you can imagine how quickly you'll get tired of a new installment with no significant improvements. Once again, Rampage exemplifies repetition like no other series in gaming.

Graphics: D

Sound: D-

First Play: C-

Replay Value: D-

Gameplay: F

Overall: 58% F