Instead of saving cities, this time you'll be smashing them – as a gigantic gorilla, lizard or werewolf who once used to be human. Rampage by Bally Midway from the mid-1980s turned the script of B-movie monster films inside out and gave players what they secretly longed for: to smash a skyscraper into rubble.
The game offers a trio of unforgettable beasts – George (a giant ape à la King Kong), Lizzie (a Godzilla-style lizard) and Ralph (a werewolf) – and, crucially, three people can play at once. Destroying the city together is the core of the experience and its greatest fun: climbing façades, pounding on buildings until they collapse, and along the way nudging (or deliberately slugging) your monster friends.
The mechanics are charmingly straightforward yet addictive. You climb tall buildings, smash them to pieces with your blows and in between swallow everything usable – residents in windows, food, but also less appealing objects that instead drain your health. Soldiers, tanks, helicopters and residents firing from windows try to stop you. When a monster loses all its energy, it shrinks back into a naked little human who shuffles bashfully away – one of the funniest details of its time.
Rampage travels through dozens of cities across the United States, so there's unexpectedly a lot of content and the competition for the highest score never ends. The destruction, the lightly comic tone and the ability to play with three made it a fixture of arcades and home conversions. It was cathartic – after a tough day there was nothing better than turning into a beast and leveling a city to the ground.
The title saw a sequel and many ports to home systems, and its brand survived long decades, including a later film adaptation with a human star in the lead role. As one of the first games in which you were outright the "bad guy," Rampage earned a permanent place in players' memory.
Why play: Becoming a giant beast and leveling a city to the ground with three friends is pure, cathartic fun – Rampage turns destruction into a joyful party.
Game 51 of 258 for Arcade
