Rampage

Rampage casts the player as giant monsters – a gigantic ape, a lizard, and a werewolf – rampaging through American cities and tearing down building after building while fending off the army, police, and other armed forces. The goal of each level is to level as many buildings as possible before time runs out, while the player must also keep an eye on their own health, replenished by eating civilians and soldiers scrambling out of the rubble. This combination of destruction and survival gives the game its unmistakable, mischievous humor, setting it apart from more seriously toned action titles of the same era. As the game progresses, the cities change and the difficulty rises as more military hardware appears to resist the destruction, from simple soldiers all the way up to tanks and helicopters.

The Atari 7800 conversion preserves the basic principle of the arcade original – gradually knocking down rows of buildings in cities across the map – and offers two-player simultaneous play, which fundamentally changes the dynamic: players must either divide up the buildings between them or compete for the highest score, or get in each other's way while scrambling through the rubble. The graphics are simple but functional, with the silhouettes of the monsters and the crumbling building floors easy to read, while the crash and roar sound effects add to the feeling of destructive fun without needing a complex musical score that would only distract from the destruction.

The arcade version of Rampage was popular in its day precisely for its accessible, instantly understandable fun and the option to play with multiple people, which earned it lasting popularity even outside arcades and led to later sequels on other platforms. The home version for the 7800 made this concept available to console owners in a simpler but still functional form, keeping the basic joy of demolition intact. Today the game appeals mainly as a quick, undemanding session full of demolition – ideal for a moment when you just want to calmly level a city to the ground.

Why play it: For a quick, undemanding session full of city demolition with multiple players at once, when all you want is to calmly level a whole city to the ground.