The Rampage series evolves about as slowly as Madden and Mario Party, but Midway is smart enough to only release a Rampage game every few years. Total Destruction is the biggest leap yet for the series, but that's not saying much. The game caters to nostalgic fans of the series who want more of the same action without digging up old game systems. It is still the same mindless, easy, yet strangely addictive formula that you've known for years.

Rampage is all about controlling Godzilla-sized monsters as they go from city to city, toppling every building and eating everything in sight. It can at times be just as much fun as it sounds. The military sends increasingly powerful forces to impede your tour of destruction, but the various helicopters and S.W.A.T. teams are really no threat as long as you take them out quickly. Gunners are always taking pot shots from buildings above, so your health tends to slowly decrease over time, but you can easily boost it back to full by eating food and people. The best people to eat are those gunners. At the end of each city, there's a boss battle against some crazy vehicle designed by Dr. Vector, who is responsible for creating all the monsters in the first place. The boss battles require new tactics, but are more annoying than difficult, as they take a long time to complete, and you still have to knock down all the buildings before the stage is finished.

The only real challenge in this game is dealing with the controls, which are simple but often unresponsive. For the first time, monsters can climb up the faces of buildings, not just the sides, but the added depth of gameplay is not handled very well. It's hard to position your monster to punch or grab at a particular window, because the different climbing attacks never seem to go where you would expect. When clinging to a building's face, you can punch either to the right or left, but the method of switching sides is clunky and sometimes results in you moving elsewhere on the building, rather than just switching focus from one side to the other. Jumping is also very slow and hard to control, and your monster may or may not grab a building if you jump towards it.

Despite the poor controls, Rampage is fun for a while, especially if you play the Campaign mode cooperatively with a friend. The levels go by faster that way. While playing alone, it takes a long time to knock down large buildings, so the pace of the game is hindered. Still, Total Destruction is, like the previous Rampage games, mildly addictive even if you aren't always having crazy mega fun. Playing through block after block of these cities has a dull kind of appeal, and you may be surprised to find yourself playing for an hour or more per session. It's a bit boring, yet you cannot stop playing.

Total Destruction may not push the gameplay forward much, but it does pack in far more content than previous games in the series. The original Rampage had three monsters: George (looks like King Kong), Lizzie (looks like Godzilla), and Ralph (a giant wolf). The newest game adds dozens of new monsters with such inspired names as Ramsey the Ram, Leon the Lion, Natalie the Nautilus, and Jack the Jackalope. These guys are all hidden in the Campaign mode's levels, so it pays to be thorough in your destruction of each city. There are several cities, each composed of many smaller levels, and you can always revisit them to clean up challenges such as knocking down all the buildings within a certain time limit and scoring enough points in the level before completing it. There is also a four-player competitive mode in which you see who can dish out the most damage in a particular level. And on top of all that, Total Destruction includes two other Rampage games in their entirety, no unlocking required: the original arcade versions of Rampage and Rampage: World Destruction Tour. They are very nice additions if you aren't already sick and tired of the gameplay, which is virtually the same in all three games.

Rampage is an ancient kind of game, unabashedly repetitive and simple, and that makes it a good choice for older gamers who remember pumping quarters into arcade machines other than Dance Dance Revolution. For that audience, Total Destruction is a nice package, with tons of content, a new coat of polish (other than for the controls), and a budget price. It's probably not going to endear any fans of modern games, though.