Destructopus: Total Rampage is a side-scrolling destruction game from GlitchSoft. In it, you play as The Destructopus, a normally peaceful creature, able to sleep at the bottom of the ocean for centuries, you’ve been awakened by greedy oil drillers. Coming to the surface, you see a polluted and dying world. Overtaken by rage, you vow revenge; Now it’s time to make the world green again. It is worth mentioning that Destructopus just went through a pretty major update recently, adding GameCenter support, a new campaign, new map, new areas, new levels, a new boss, and much, much more.
So in the game, you’ll go through 20 campaign levels, causing as much destruction as possible by hitting your tail and mouth attack buttons, as well as shooting a laser out of your eye. There’s loads of upgrades in the shop, but I’ll come back to that. You can press down on the joystick to dodge higher attacks, and lower attacks just go right by you, there’s red attack points on buildings which you need to hit with either your tail or mouth attacks in order to destroy them, and at the end of the level, you release some captured animals, which is a big theme in the game, and you can actually share posts on FaceBook about endangered animals right through the game. The destruction aspect, graphics, and controls, remind me of when I use to sit in front of the TV playing old 8 and 16-bit games. The difficulty is great, and there’s always that ‘one more time’ feeling after beating a level, or dying. There’s also some great scoring mechanics going on in the game, including a hit multiplier. If you can manage to not be hit during a level, your multiplier will shoot up, increasing the amount of money you’ll have to use for upgrades.
The shop in Destructopus is pretty large, and in it you can buy more attacks, defense upgrades, and if you’re good enough to earn loads of coinage pretty fast, you can unlock the two extra characters in the shop as well. There’s also IAPs for more coins if you’d like to upgrade right at the beginning of the game, or if you’re finding the game too difficult. But you can also always go back and replay previously beaten levels to gain some extra in-game cash, and unlock some more upgrades if you’re finding a particular level too hard to get through. The prices in the shop are a tad on the high side, but if you don’t mind a little grinding, can all be bought with gameplay. The higher leveled upgrades unlock as you make your way through the campaign, adding quite a bit to the drive of the game.
The shop in Destructopus is pretty large, and in it you can buy more attacks, defense upgrades, and if you’re good enough to earn loads of coinage pretty fast, you can unlock the two extra characters in the shop as well. There’s also IAPs for more coins if you’d like to upgrade right at the beginning of the game, or if you’re finding the game too difficult. But you can also always go back and replay previously beaten levels to gain some extra in-game cash, and unlock some more upgrades if you’re finding a particular level too hard to get through. The prices in the shop are a tad on the high side, but if you don’t mind a little grinding, can all be bought with gameplay. The higher leveled upgrades unlock as you make your way through the campaign, adding quite a bit to the drive of the game.The graphics that GlitchSoft has used in Destructopus are great; Very vibrant and colorful, and spread over 4 environments. There’s loads of enemies to take on, ranging from airplanes and helicopters to army men and missiles, and some very interesting boss battles are thrown into the mix as well. The animations in the game are very good, adding a whole lot the gameplay. Seeing the little innocent pedestrians running away is always good for a laugh, and the movement is very fluid. It would be nice seeing more added to the debris with the explosions, but as they are now, they’re still pretty nice. The physics also work pretty well, when you destroy something and it comes falling down or flying forward, killing more enemies and pedestrians in the process, it does feel like it has some weight to it. The music and effects are also very nice, and add to the whole atmosphere of the game.
There’s a whole lot going for Destructopus, especially after the major content update it recently received. Great controls, nice graphics, smooth gameplay, a great upgrade shop, unlockables, spreading awareness of endangered animals, and more; Along with 35 GameCenter achievements, there’s plenty of content. But there are no GC leaderboards, and the story could use a little more plot. You don’t know why the animals you’re freeing were captured, or why they’re being eatin by bosses, and there’s no push in the progress of the story while you’re moving through the environments. Having some sort of news broadcast or something would be a nice addition. But these points don’t really effect the overall gameplay, or replayability of the game, even though leaderboards would help quite a bit to nab the attention of you score mongers out there. It’s a great side-scrolling destruction based game, filled with hours upon hours of awesome, entertaining gameplay. For $0.99, it’s a great game, and the developers have stated on the Touch Arcade Forums that they’re going to include retina graphics and make the game Universal in a future update, so be on the look-out for that.
There’s a whole lot going for Destructopus, especially after the major content update it recently received. Great controls, nice graphics, smooth gameplay, a great upgrade shop, unlockables, spreading awareness of endangered animals, and more; Along with 35 GameCenter achievements, there’s plenty of content. But there are no GC leaderboards, and the story could use a little more plot. You don’t know why the animals you’re freeing were captured, or why they’re being eatin by bosses, and there’s no push in the progress of the story while you’re moving through the environments. Having some sort of news broadcast or something would be a nice addition. But these points don’t really effect the overall gameplay, or replayability of the game, even though leaderboards would help quite a bit to nab the attention of you score mongers out there. It’s a great side-scrolling destruction based game, filled with hours upon hours of awesome, entertaining gameplay. For $0.99, it’s a great game, and the developers have stated on the Touch Arcade Forums that they’re going to include retina graphics and make the game Universal in a future update, so be on the look-out for that. I’m giving Destructopus: Total Rampage a score of 4.5 out of 5 stars.