Rampage Deluxe and the Late EGM

I forget the original name to this Epyx game that was in development for the Atari Lynx. It was meant to be among their second wave of titles for the handheld. It was eventually renamed Rampage Deluxe, which was an obvious choice.

This screenshot comes from EGM #4, and to this day, this remains the only surviving piece of evidence that this game ever existed. Rampage would eventually emerge by Atari a couple years later, but it was an entirely different affair; instead of this lush, next-generation sequel, Lynx Rampage was a decent, if bland, port of the arcade game. It's really no contest. Rampage Deluxe looks a million times better. Ah, well, such are the mysteries of life and death.

And on that note, dear readers, I see that Electronic Gaming Monthly has finally died. EGM was always my favorite game magazine back in the day, and they always continued that punkish enthusiasm all the way through to the end. The original publisher was a high school dropout named Steve Harris, and he started EGM in Chicago with a crew dubbed the "U.S. National Video Game Team." It sounded cool at the time. In the end, Harris sold his fledgling empire to Ziff-Davis for untold millions. Not a bad way to play the America game.

A toast - to Rampage Deluxe, to Epyx, to the Lynx, and to Electronic Gaming Monthly. You belong to a begone era, and you will all be missed. Hopefully, in some parallel universe, God is a teenage boy who is really into videogames. You'll always have a home there.