Transforms from tiger to robot and back!

PREDACON: RAMPAGE

FUNCTION: GUNNER
"Those who conquer, act; those who are conquered, think!"

Barrels through life with an uncontrolled fury. Has difficulty talikng coherently for more than a few seconds before violently lashing out at anything near him, friend or foe. TV calms him...stares at rock music videos for hours. As tiger, can leap 300 ft. in height, 500 ft. in length. A kick from his foreleg can crumble a cinder block well. As robot, carries 60,000 volt lightning rifle, 5000ºF thermo-sword. Combines with fellow Predacons to form Predaking.

  • Strength: 8
  • Intelligence: 3
  • Speed: 5
  • Endurance: 6
  • Rank: 5
  • Courage: 9
  • Firepower: 9
  • Skill: 6
Transformers Tech Specs


You had to deduce that Rampage was a tiger from his orange color, since they didn't put any stripes on him (it would have ruined his "look", anyways). Despite that, he was the best-looking animal and robot in the Predacon lineup, narrowly edging out Razorclaw, with "nasty" exuding from every joint and hinge.

I was amused by the "TV calms him" comment in the tech spec. Sounds like some cartoon fans I know.

A 1986 arcade game from Bally Midway.

The idea is simple. The "heroes" of the game are Really Big Animals who used to be just normal people, but something mutantaneous happened to them one day: George, who mutated after eating some megavitamins, is a giant gorilla similar to King Kong, Lizzie, who previously bathed in a radioactive lake, is a giant lizard sort of similar to Godzilla, and third is an unique variety, a giant wolf (naturally, my personal favorite =) called Ralph (with an exclamation point after the name, if we are to properly spell it) who ate some pretty unusual sausages.

Your job in the game, as one of these big creatures, is to wreck all buildings of a city. You can eat various things in the game to get bonuses - sometimes these effects are pretty fun (eat a stick of dynamite and your monster coughs fire for some time). You can also terrorize the National Guard (who desperately tries to shoot you from foot, helicopters, tanks and from the windows of the buildings), eat people - even your coplayers after they turn back to normal people when they die, and push around vehicles (two players can also play ping-pong with a tram along the rails). And newspapers show amazing headlines between the levels...

Actually winning the game is absurdly hard - home versions are easier to beat. The game is obviously more intended to relieve stress in small doses...

  • The arcade game reportedly has 768 days; This is going to require a lot of patience, not to even mention coins. =)
  • Morgon77 tells me that Atari Lynx version was winnable after 100 levels - a scientist had found a cure for this interesting transformation.
  • Chris-O says NES version ends after around 127 or 128 days, with a congratulatory message after Lizzie knocks California off the map. (Or Hawaii, as Servo5678 says with a hint of hesitation. Anyone knows for sure?)

So, it can get boring in MAME if you keep getting more credits (so, please, use the '5' button very sparingly for maximum enjoyment =).

All levels are the same style, except the background graphics can change a bit depending on which part of the world the city you wreck is...

Overall, the game is definitely a classic, a very humorous version of all gigantic monster movies and an inspirator to many followers - and sequels. Some of the recent sequels include Rampage World Tour series and the loosely related Rampage Puzzle Attack.

The arcade game runs with two CPUs, according to MAME - a Z80 for game, and 68000 for sound.

There's also some place in FurryMUCK that has this game - but with the twist that the characters are actually entering the game, instead... I was Ralph =)

Commodore 64: Several versions exist for home computers. I didn't like the Commodore 64 version that much, mostly because C64 had only one fire button and it degraded this game's playability very much. The graphics aren't that great either, Ralph looks like a rat. However, the menu music (by Russell Lieblich) is really good (better than the one that is missing from the arcade version, anyway =), and is among one of my favorite SIDtunes.


Sources:
http://www.klov.com/R/Rampage.html
The information given by MAME

Rampage II

Background

During Season 2 of "Beast Wars," the show took on a noticeably darker tone. It was the first time (aside from Transformers: the Movie) that Transformers had had to deal with real death. I knew we were in for it when in the first few minutes of the first episode of that season, the Predacons called Scorponok and Terrorsaur met their collective demise in a pit of lava. It's not hard to see, then, that when you've got death, those who cause death can't be very far behind. Rampage was one of the latter.

Origin

Rampage began life as something of a science project being conducted by Maximal scientists. The goal of the experiment was an attempt to clone the indestructible spark of the Decepticon lieutenant-commander Starscream. Luckily -- or perhaps unluckily -- they succeeded, and "Protoform X" was born. X would have done his father proud; he was cunning, treacherous, and very deadly. Here, however, is where the acorn doesn't just fall from the tree, it blasts off into the stratosphere. Unlike Starscream, X didn't care about himself. He had no higher ideology to which he dedicated his life. He had no desire for personal glory. He didn't even want to dethrone the leader of his faction and take his place! No, X didn't really care about much of anything...except for fear. X lived on the fear he instilled into his victims...he was a fear junkie. The best way to instill fear, of course, is to destroy entire civilizations. X did just that on the Omicron Colony. For this most unpardonable crime, X was brought before a tribunal. His captor, Depth Charge, had been the sole survivor of the Omicron massacre and petitioned for his destruction. Having an indestructible spark made this rather impossible, though, and the Maximal elders decided that X ought to be put into stasis lock and stored in a stasis pod on the exploratory vessel known as the Axalon. The Axalon's mission was to drop the pod off on the most uninhabitable, distant, and deserted planet they could find. Megatron's flight from Cybertron into destiny put that on hold for a while, though.

Rampage made his first appearance about halfway through the second season. His stasis pod crashed onto prehistoric Earth and he was accidentally set loose after an energon surge triggered the DNA scanning equipment on his pod. X's pod scanned a crab of some sort and he adopted a huge beast mode with an intermediate vehicle mode that allowed him to transform into a large tank. Megatron took it upon himself to induct X -- now known as Rampage -- into the Predacons. To this end, he fashioned a blade of pure energon and cut Rampage's spark in half. He kept his half in a little squeeze-box that he gently applied pressure to when he felt as if Rampage wasn't minding his manners.

"The darkness of its spark echoes my own...it belongs with me!"

Every indestructible beast has its weakness. Rampage was no different. Rampage's weakness came in the guise of a deformed, half-undeveloped, vaguely female (and implicitly retarded) Maximal protoform he dubbed Transmutate. The stasis pod in which Transmutate crashed to Earth was badly damaged. Megatron sent Inferno to claim it, but he was met en route by Silverbolt and rendered unconscious. When Rampage arrived on the scene, the pod was near self-destruction, but sensed its strength (saying "another like me, perhaps?") and managed to coax the protoform out of its shell. Although the Maximals (aside from Silverbolt) and Megatron were less than impressed with the rather freakish addition, Rampage saw it and breathlessly proclaimed "magnificent." Throughout the course of the episode, Rampage and Silverbolt struggled for control of the twisted creature called Transmutate. Megatron called deemed it "useless" and Optimus Primal thought it to be a "danger." Rampage pressed Megatron to give it a chance, however, and he relented. If it failed, however, it was to be destroyed. The Maximals eventually apprehended Transmutate and took it to their base for analysis. When Optimus Primal said it needed to be put into stasis lock, Silverbolt went ballistic and went off to brood. Rampage managed to (telepathically?) contact Transmutate and it left the Axalon to be with its friend. Silverbolt went off after it and the two began fighting. Unfortunately, Transmutate was caught in a crossfire of Silverbolt's grenades and Rampage's missiles and it was destroyed. Rampage cradled its shattered frame in his arms as it weakly said "I...am...hurt..." and died. The only thing the sociopathic mass-murderer ever loved was gone. (It was really a rather touching episode, but unfortunately it was never referenced again.)

The Beginning of the End

Season 3 saw the introduction of Rampage's arch-nemesis Depth Charge. His sole reason for existence was the destruction of Protoform X. Rampage was more than happy to accomodate the warlike tendencies of his "old friend" and the battled it out every chance they got. Hoping to rebuild his somewhat scattered army (Tarantulas was on his own and Blackarachnia had defected), Megatron took the other half of Rampage's immortal spark and used it to create a clone of his long-dead ex-lieutenant Dinobot. This new Dinobot possessed none of the honor or virtue of his predecessor. Infuriated by the recycling of half of his spark, Rampage and Dinobot often got into scrapes with one another. Any time Dinobot felt Rampage was out of line, he just gave his chest a little squeeze and straightened him out. Starscream would have been proud of both of his cruel sons.

Death

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Rampage was killed in a self-sacrificial move by Depth Charge in the second-to-last episode of the series. The two were fighting underwater when they happened upon a patch of unstable, raw energon crystals. Siezing the opportunity, Depth Charge took one and slammed it into Rampage's spark, obliterating them both. Rampage's other half, Dinobot, regained the nobility his namesake had possessed and (through the sacrifice of his own life) was instrumental in bringing down Megatron and ending the Beast Wars.

Did I leave something out? Have a different opinion? Do you just not like me? Do me a favor and /msg me and tell me why. Downvoting me without giving me an explanation is like reviewing a movie by saying "it sucks" and then not giving a reason. It doesn't help anybody improve anything and it certainly doesn't make me want to work any harder.

Ramp"age (?), n. [See Ramp, v.]

Violent or riotous behavior; a state of excitement, passion, or debauchery; as, to be on the rampage.

[Prov. or Low.]

Dickens.

 

© Webster 1913.


Ramp"age, v. i.

To leap or prance about, as an animal; to be violent; to rage.

[Prov. or Low]

 

© Webster 1913.

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