Ocean's second wrestling game is tag-team-based, taking the player through four fights around major European cities. The player assembles a two-man team from Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, Brett 'Hitman' Hart and Macho Man Randy Savage.
Combat takes place both in and out of the ring, although a wrestler can't spend more than ten seconds at a time outside the ring. Once opponents are stunned, it becomes possible to throw them, which inflicts real damage to their energy bar. Many combination moves are available, including jumping off the ropes and landing on an opponent to pin him.
As most of you have probably guessed by now I love Wrestling (especially the late 80s early 90s period in the WWF history). That's why I'm bringing you yet another such game. This time the superstars of the WWF are on their European Rampage Tour.
This game is the follow up on the Wrestlemania made by Ocean and they have improved certain aspects of the game. The graphic is really great. I was really surprised by the level of details you can see on wrestlers. One could recognize them while moving in the ring and that wasn't an easy task for the 1992 graphic designers. Not to mention that the animations run smoothly. The sound is a completely different area (it's almost non-existent). But I guess you can't have everything.
The gameplay has changed. You're no longer involved in numerous power struggles that are doing serious damage to your keyboard (or joystick). The choice of moves isn't all that impressive yet. You can punch, hit or stomp (depends on how far away you are), run and perform a few actions while running (my favorite is also the best offensive maneuver you have in the repertoire The Running Roll). The most important change in the gameplay, however, is the fact that all the matches are Tag Team Matches. This allows you to play a single player or a two player mode (where each player controls one member of the team). Now they are all playing by the book, so there are always only two opposing wrestlers standing in the ring, to switch to your partner you need to tag him in.
The background story is a little weird though. There are four different superstars and you need to select two. For some unclear reason they've decided to start working together and get themselves a tag team championship title currently held by Hawk and Animal aka The Legion of Doom.
The strange thing is that Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan were tag team partners at a certain point in the WWF history, but that was quite a few years before this game. Bret Hart on the other hand became famous as a tag team wrestler along with Jim "the Anvil" Nightheart, but the Ultimate Warrior never was a tag team wrestler. It did therefore surprise me that you had to build a team of these four wrestlers instead of selecting an actual tag team of the time (especially because you have to fight the tag teams of the time).
Unfortunately all the characters have the same capabilities and moves (which are explained in the manual).
The game is taking place in four locations. First you need to win the British part of the tour, where you fight in London. Then you're off to Munich Germany, where you need to fight the same three teams. After that you'll face the same three opposing teams yet again, only this time in Paris. If you win all nine matches, you'll return back to the US as the number one contender for the tag team title and will fight the Legion of Doom in the Madison Square Garden.
All in all there are ten fights. The first opponents are the Nasty Boys (Knobbs & Sags), after them you face Money Inc. (a team of Irvin R. Shyster aka I.R.S. & Ted Dibiase aka The Million Dollar Man). As the third team you'll have to fight the Natural Disasters (Earthquake & Typhoon). You'll have to defeat each team three times (once in each of the European cities) and then you'll have the championship match in New York in the old Madison Square Garden.
The opponents will get slightly better every time, but the AI isn't very smart, so if you master the basic strategy, you'll be able to win all the matches. When you tag your opponent in, you'll be standing in a spot where you're almost invincible. The opponent will have to come near and you'll almost always be able to throw the first punch. Also if you master the running roll you'll be able to either knock down the opponent or at least get away from his attack (and there's a 5:1 possibility that you'll knock the other guy down). So a general tip, wear the opponent down (they'll change with the partner, but won't fully recuperate). When they're strong, you better stay on your side of the ring, but when they get weak, you should try to prevent the tag. The weaker they are, the longer they'll take to recuperate and the better your chances are for winning.
And now go and kick some butt.
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
People who downloaded WWF: European Rampage Tour have also downloaded:
WWF: Wrestlemania, WWE Raw (a.k.a. WWF Raw), WWF in Your House, Hexen: Beyond Heretic, WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game, Mario's Game Gallery, Virtua Cop (a.k.a. Virtua Squad), Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach
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