While there have been quite a number of games over the years where you’ve gotten to play the role of the monster, none of them has had nearly the lasting impact of the original Rampage. I have fond memories of my friends and I loading up a few quarters and having a blast wrecking buildings, fighting back against the military, and of course eating people for health. Whether it’s fair or not, every game released in that same general vein will ultimately be measured against that standard. While obviously made with a more limited scope, unfortunately They Came From the Sky 2 falls far short of that bar.

In the game you’ll control what amounts to a giant alien mech, and pretty well the entirety of your purpose is to cause as much destruction as you’re able before being destroyed yourself. To do so you have some weapons and skills at your disposal, including a gun that you can aim freely, your ability to stomp the ground, and a beam that shoots below you that can be used to pick up humans. There will also periodically be balloons that you can destroy that will drop power-ups, as well as enhancements from specifically picking up enough Elvis impersonators with your beam. 

While I actually like the game’s old-school minimalist pixel art look that happens to be pretty well animated overall, I found the gameplay to be uneven and generally disappointing. While I really like the game’s use of newspaper headlines to periodically share info on what you’re doing, I wish it was more effective at giving you in-game tips on how to play effectively. The chaotic nature of the action can make it hard to let your focus drop, and simply taking the time to more comprehensively explain what little there is to know would have made more sense. In particular, trying to collect Elvis impersonators is a challenge since the low level of detail makes spotting them more difficult than it should be. Similarly, a lack of direction on what new power-ups or weapons do, or how they work, can make obtaining them a mix of underwhelming and even confusing at times.

While I appreciate the general effort, there’s no getting around the game’s issues. Whether it's the lack of overall variety, the fact that understanding some aspects of play requires some trial and error experimentation, or just the fact that despite being decades older Rampage offers up so much more in comparison, this is tough to love. At least we’ve already had the really fun Terror of Hemasaurus show that there is a path to greatness, this just got lost somewhere along the way.