Rambo: The Video Game is a recently released recreation of the classic, testosterone loaded films and is now available for PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3. It was produced by Reef Entertainment. The game takes on a rail shooter personality, adding a twist. The game, like most rail shooters, controls the player for you, taking the camera from one point of interest to the next. In addition to that, Rambo: The Video Game adds quick-time events, split between missed and perfect. Missed quick-time events result in a five second cut-scene where an enemy skillfully plants a bullet in Rambo’s head, whereas a perfectly executed quick-time event rewards the player with more points that can be spent on health upgrades and abilities at the end of a level. The game also includes an interesting reloading mechanic. Reloading is a quick-time event as well, but how well the player reacts will result in how well and how quickly Rambo reloads. Poor reloading will cause a “jam” and the player will end up with only half a magazine of bullets, while a perfect reload rewards the player with twice as much ammo as an average reload.
The plot is quite literally taken from the first three Rambo films, First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Rambo III. It replays key events in the films, having the player play through them as the hulking, military hero himself, with the difference of actually being mortal, as opposed to the big screen counterpart. Rambo: The Video Game, like most rail shooters, starts off as relatively easy with the difficulty increasing as the game progresses. Unfortunately, from what I’ve experienced, there is a major difficulty spike towards the final levels of the game, causing the game to become horribly difficult to finish for those that lack the patience and determination to put up with digital rubbish.
The graphics can be likened to early Playstation 3/Xbox 360 games. The environment looks well textured and, as a bonus, is completely destructible. The same can’t be said about character models. Rambo himself looks like a Playstation 2 character with a bad hair-day and an overdose of baby lotion. The enemy characters all look identical. The audio sounds like it had been recorded by a minimum wage employee, holding a 90’s tape recorder to his TV as the films play. Rambo himself is barely audible and other key characters sound distorted and distant. The checkpoint system can cause high blood pressure levels later in the game, as the player can survive hordes of enemy soldiers only to be put down by a wondering grenade. This of course forces you to go back 10 minutes and replay the entire thing.
All in all, if you enjoy Rambo or cheesy rail shooters, and feel like exposing yourself to high levels of stress and blood pressure, then this game could be easily worth a $20 pick-up. If not, just watch the films with a controller in your hands for a better gaming experience.