It's not enough to be an excellent modern take on Rampage, Terror of Hemasaurus also has a hilarious and important environmental message!
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- Title: Terror of Hemasaurus
- Release Date: January 12, 2023 (Switch Version)
- Price: $12.99
- Suggested Audience Age: Rated M for Mature by the ESRB
- Availability: Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, GOG, Epic
- Recommended for fans of: Rampage, Godzilla, and Mother Earth
Geek to Geek Media was provided with a review copy of this title.
Terror of Hemasuarus is an obvious homage to Rampage, in the same way that the studio's previous game, Super Blood Hockey, was built in the mold of Ice Hockey on the NES. The basic gameplay here is a mindless button masher where you play a big lizard smashing buildings. It's a really good version of that, but what makes Terror of Hemasaurus special is that it's also got a wonderfully horrible sense of humor.
Smash and Bash
The gameplay of Terror of Hemasaurus is laughably simple, but it's perfect. You and up to three friends choose a monster, enter a level, and walk left to right causing as much mayhem as you possibly can along the way.
From what I've seen, all the monsters play exactly the same. You can jump and grab onto buildings like in Rampage, except instead of being stuck to the edges of the building you can grab on anywhere on the face of the thing. From there, you can attack the building to damage it, eventually knocking it over.
Of course, your monsters can also chomp on humans, which helps them heal. You can also grab people and fling them across the screen, either at helicopters or just to see them splat. Finally, you can kick as you march across the screen, which is particularly satisfying when you kick a car into a building and cause it to collapse.
There are no real surprises in the core loop. It's a lot like Rampage, but a little bit better and extremely refined. If you just like seeing monsters crush buildings, this game will do it for you.
Jokes on Jokes
What sets Terror of Hemasaurus apart from being just a great Rampage knockoff is that it's got a story, and that story is absolutely hilarious.
Instead of just dropping into different stages with slightly different layouts, Terror of Hemasaurus has objective-based levels. You move left to right from the start of a stage to the end, but along the way you have specific goals to hit to actually complete the level. Honestly, these are usually things you'll do naturally just by being a big monster marching through a city, like killing a certain number of people or destroying a certain percentage of buildings.
Where things get fun is where the game's story loops into the objectives. You see, Terror of Hemasaurus is a story about environmental activism. I am going to give you a short summary of the story, and you are going to think it doesn't make any sense. That's because it doesn't, but also it's great.
Terror of Hemasaurus takes place as humanity is on the cusp of ecological disaster. In order to change the course of history, a cult in the future created a giant monster and then sent it back in time in order to freeze in a glacier and then thaw just on that cusp of disaster. So, as the face of global warming, it's your job to kill lots of people in order to convince the world to take climate change seriously.
With that in mind, level objectives that have you kicking cars to remind folks how bad they are for the environment had me cackling like an idiot.
Final Thoughts
Terror of Hemasaurus is an absurdly stupid game. The story is ridiculous, the gore is over the top, and the gameplay is super simple. It's also an absolute blast that I am having a great time playing through. I'm still early in the game, but the absurdity hasn't worn off for me yet, so even in single player I'm having a blast.
I can only imagine that the giggles would multiply if you had a group to play this with. If you have any fondness for Rampage, you will have a wonderful time with this title. Just don't go into it expecting a deep, modern interpretation… this one is just for fun.