Rambo The Video Game (PC) Review
System PC
Developer Teyon Publisher Reef Entertainment Genre Rail Shooter # of Players 1-2 Release Date February 21st, 2014 (PC) |
Pros
Decent rail shooter Cons Not much to do outside the main story Game is short Quick Time Events can be trivialized |
Review
by Thonos
4/24/2015
Licensed video games usually end up bad. Either they are rushed to meet a deadline to line up with the movie release or they don't capture the feel of the movie it is trying to portray. Rambo The Video Game doesn't suffer from either of these pitfalls. The game came out at a time when no Rambo movies were being released and playing the game made me feel that I was playing certain parts of the movie. However this game has its flaws and depending if you can overlook them is going to determine whether or not this is the game for you.
Rambo the Video game is an rail shooter from Teyon and published by Reed Entertainment. The game pretty much follows the story from the three Rambo films having you play out key points from each film that works out to being 16 missions. The game uses the voices of John Rambo and Colonel Trautman from the movies for there in game cut scenes. The developers crammed as much Rambo content that they could into the game. Ultimately this helps makes up for some of the games shortcomings
Being that its a rail shooter you don't control the your movement but you can use cover to dodge enemy bullets. Kill all enemies on the screen and the game moves you to the next screen. The game incorporates a reload mechanic that if you hit the button at the right time you get double the ammo per clip but if you are way off you only get half the ammo you would have got normally. This is an alright mechanic that is nice when you keep getting perfect reloads but can hamper you if you miss and only get half a reload.
Playing the game I had no problems with the rail mechanics. I felt the shooting was solid and the weapons felt different enough from each other. Special items like grenades and arrows have there uses. What I didn't have a use for was the secondary weapon you can carry with you. I never had to switch to use it through my play through. Also, the game makes use of quick time events from some areas. While I was not a fan of them, since this is a rail shooter I can understand using them for the stealth areas in the game.
The game has a skill and perk system. Gaining points in the game acts as experience and at the end of each level if you cross a certain threshold of points you gain a level. Gaining levels gets you skill points that lets you upgrade your toughness, wrath meter, weapon damage among other things. Gaining levels also unlocks perks that you can equip. These perks vary and can be an increase in ammo, faster experience gain, ect. You can equip only three perks at a time. One perk I found useful was the ability not to loose a quick time event. With that said it also trivializes quick time events.
Killing enemies fills up your wrath bar and you fill it up you can enter Wrath mode. This mode turns the screen orange, illuminates enemies, slows down enemies and gives you unlimited ammo. Killing enemies while in this mode refills your health bar. This mode works as intended and thats good since it is the only way to gain health.
I felt the game levels look good and each level feels like it was from the movies to some degree. The design and flow of each mission can be somewhat based upon certain scenes of the movies. The character models look alright but they are not the greatest. The audio in the game is good and fits the mood of the game.
Besides the story mode the game lets you replay any mission that you have unlocked and Trautman's Challenge tells you what objectives you have to do to unlock weapons. There is also an online leader board that shows the game stats for players and who has the most points. Thats it, once you beat the game there is not much else to do unless you want to get the top score. The game also supports two player local coop, however that was not tested in this review.
The game takes about three hours to beat which for a rail shooter is normal. Overall the gameplay itself wasn't too bad but I felt the enemy damage was tuned too high even on the lowest difficulty. I started each level on the second lowest difficulty and I usually had to drop it to the lowest difficulty at some point during it. Granted a more skilled player probably wouldn't have had much of a problem. On the same token, there really isn't much of a reason to play on the higher difficulty unless you are looking for a challenge. I will say that the final level was stupid hard even on the lowest difficulty.
Understanding what this game is and what it is not is important when deciding if you want to get this game. This game is not going to appeal to everyone. If you are not a fan of rail shooters you may not like this game. If you are not a fan of the Rambo movies this game might not keep your interest. I also would not get the game at full price (I got it on sale for 75% off). If they would have made an open world game like Far Cry this game might have been more interesting. For a rail shooter its a alright game that I'll play once and thats it.
by Thonos
4/24/2015
Licensed video games usually end up bad. Either they are rushed to meet a deadline to line up with the movie release or they don't capture the feel of the movie it is trying to portray. Rambo The Video Game doesn't suffer from either of these pitfalls. The game came out at a time when no Rambo movies were being released and playing the game made me feel that I was playing certain parts of the movie. However this game has its flaws and depending if you can overlook them is going to determine whether or not this is the game for you.
Rambo the Video game is an rail shooter from Teyon and published by Reed Entertainment. The game pretty much follows the story from the three Rambo films having you play out key points from each film that works out to being 16 missions. The game uses the voices of John Rambo and Colonel Trautman from the movies for there in game cut scenes. The developers crammed as much Rambo content that they could into the game. Ultimately this helps makes up for some of the games shortcomings
Being that its a rail shooter you don't control the your movement but you can use cover to dodge enemy bullets. Kill all enemies on the screen and the game moves you to the next screen. The game incorporates a reload mechanic that if you hit the button at the right time you get double the ammo per clip but if you are way off you only get half the ammo you would have got normally. This is an alright mechanic that is nice when you keep getting perfect reloads but can hamper you if you miss and only get half a reload.
Playing the game I had no problems with the rail mechanics. I felt the shooting was solid and the weapons felt different enough from each other. Special items like grenades and arrows have there uses. What I didn't have a use for was the secondary weapon you can carry with you. I never had to switch to use it through my play through. Also, the game makes use of quick time events from some areas. While I was not a fan of them, since this is a rail shooter I can understand using them for the stealth areas in the game.
The game has a skill and perk system. Gaining points in the game acts as experience and at the end of each level if you cross a certain threshold of points you gain a level. Gaining levels gets you skill points that lets you upgrade your toughness, wrath meter, weapon damage among other things. Gaining levels also unlocks perks that you can equip. These perks vary and can be an increase in ammo, faster experience gain, ect. You can equip only three perks at a time. One perk I found useful was the ability not to loose a quick time event. With that said it also trivializes quick time events.
Killing enemies fills up your wrath bar and you fill it up you can enter Wrath mode. This mode turns the screen orange, illuminates enemies, slows down enemies and gives you unlimited ammo. Killing enemies while in this mode refills your health bar. This mode works as intended and thats good since it is the only way to gain health.
I felt the game levels look good and each level feels like it was from the movies to some degree. The design and flow of each mission can be somewhat based upon certain scenes of the movies. The character models look alright but they are not the greatest. The audio in the game is good and fits the mood of the game.
Besides the story mode the game lets you replay any mission that you have unlocked and Trautman's Challenge tells you what objectives you have to do to unlock weapons. There is also an online leader board that shows the game stats for players and who has the most points. Thats it, once you beat the game there is not much else to do unless you want to get the top score. The game also supports two player local coop, however that was not tested in this review.
The game takes about three hours to beat which for a rail shooter is normal. Overall the gameplay itself wasn't too bad but I felt the enemy damage was tuned too high even on the lowest difficulty. I started each level on the second lowest difficulty and I usually had to drop it to the lowest difficulty at some point during it. Granted a more skilled player probably wouldn't have had much of a problem. On the same token, there really isn't much of a reason to play on the higher difficulty unless you are looking for a challenge. I will say that the final level was stupid hard even on the lowest difficulty.
Understanding what this game is and what it is not is important when deciding if you want to get this game. This game is not going to appeal to everyone. If you are not a fan of rail shooters you may not like this game. If you are not a fan of the Rambo movies this game might not keep your interest. I also would not get the game at full price (I got it on sale for 75% off). If they would have made an open world game like Far Cry this game might have been more interesting. For a rail shooter its a alright game that I'll play once and thats it.