Game of the Day 2/29/2016: Rampart
Well, since it's leap year, I figured that today I'd go less oddball and just talk about a classic. Rampart has been a multi-player favorite among my friends for a good twenty years, and for good reason. It's been on so many systems, originating in arcades, then NES, SNES, Lynx, Game Boy, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, GBA, GBC, Famicom, Genesis, Master System, PS3, and I'm sure more I'm not recalling just this second, and its popularity comes from a combination of its uniqueness and simplicity.
Rampart is a hybrid strategy/puzzle game in which you begin by selecting a castle, which will be surrounded by a rectangular wall. Next, you place cannons inside of that wall. Then, the battle begins. You move a cursor about the battlefield, targeting enemy structures. In the single player game, this means opposing ships, or if you're just wasting your turn, the soldiers they release if they reach land. Blow up all enemy ships to win, or target another player's walls or cannons... but the battle only lasts a few paltry seconds. Then, it's building phase.
Your opponents will have been firing at your walls, which will now be peppered with holes. For 25 seconds, the game randomly assigns you Tetris-like building blocks with which to build new walls. You must have at least one castle fully enclosed in order to continue to the next battle phase or it's game over. Moreover, your cannons must also be enclosed should you wish to fire them, so you must take great care in your approach. Successfully enclose your castle and extra castles or ground, and you will be alotted more cannons to place, exponentially increasing your firepower. Enclosed land also grants you points, which are for high score in single player, and to make a decision victory in head to head if both players survive all three rounds of battle.
The real strategy comes not in just blasting the crap out of your enemy's walls, but choosing to destroy single spaces here and there that will require a lucky draw of specific pieces in order to reclaim the castle and cannons. Blow up too much, and it gets easy to slap any old piece in place. Blast too little, and they may end up with time to enclose even more land and castles.
Where Rampart is doubly satisfying is in the victory celebration for the winner in head to head. You get to manually execute your opposition as they scream, and all your friend can do is watch helplessly and beg you to hurry it up. In the SNES version, your foe is blindfolded on the plank of a ship, and you get to prod at them with the tip of your sword with the press of a button until they fall into the deep. It's a mean way to end the game, and fuels the need for a rematch or two. Or three.
The arcade version offers three player support apparently, but thus far I haven't tried it, as we always gravitate to the same copy I pried the Blockbuster stickers off of two decades ago. It's a fantastic head to head experience, and there's nothing else quite like it.
My best opponent is my brother. Do you have a mortal Rampart enemy?
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