Into the Sands of Afghanistan

As the years moved on and new films came out, we inevitably had to transition away from Rambo: First Blood Part II. That film was a massive success and it spawned a ton of games across a number of platforms, but there was only so long that it could be the hot one at the dance. Something new had to come along, and it did in the form of Carolco’s own sequel film, Rambo III. A new movie meant new merchandise, new lunchboxes, new t-shirts, new footie pajamas and, of course, new video games.

Tracking through in chronological order, the first we come upon is, of course, a game from Ocean who had the PC rights to Rambo and they weren’t going to pass up an opportunity to milk it for all its worth. Their title, simply called Rambo III to match up with the movie, follows John Rambo on his mission to save Colonel Trautman, who has been captured by the Russians and is being held in an Afghani prison until they bleed him dry of everything he knows. But, of course, Rambo isn’t going to let that happen.

We saw a variety of ideas for Rambo games from various companies before, and looking at all of that, Ocean (with developer Taito) decided the best game to make was a top down dungeon explorer. You know, like Pack-In-Video’s various Rambo games. You start as John Rambo, in the Afghani base (skipping over the first hour or so of story in the film), equipped only with a knife (as he always was in Pack-In-Video’s titles) and he has to explore around, looking for a way to get to trautman and escape the prison.

Doing so, naturally, won’t be easy. You have to move around, room to room, looking for items, weapons, and treasures you can use to get deeper into the dungeon. Hit a span of rooms that are bathed in darkness? You’ll need to track down a glow stick to light your way. Forced to go across an area riddled with mines? You’ll need a mine detector to see where danger is and avoid it. The game has a number of items to collect (beyond various arrows you can shoot from your bow) and the trick will be exploring everywhere to find what you need before you get caught in an area you can’t escape.

In concept I don’t mind this style of gameplay. Sure, it’s a lot like what Pack-In-Video was doing, but at least it’s set in a different location, with different items to collect, and new dungeons to explore. While it doesn’t feel entirely fresh it is at least different. Not better, mind you, just different. I’ve really played way too many of these “take Rambo through top-down dungeons” games at this point to really think that Ocean and Taito were doing anything new or interesting with this game. It iterates on what Pack-In-Video was doing without evolving it.

And, in many ways, it feels like less of a game than where Pack-In-Video was going. Bearing in mind that Pack-In-Video gave it one last show with their Rambo on NES, making a decent Zelda II: The Adventure of Link clone that really tried to push their gameplay style forward. It wasn’t a perfect experience, and it did liberally borrow from Nintendo’s own ideas, but it still felt like that company was trying to push their whole idea forward and make something new from the bones. Ocean, though, didn’t want anything to do with “new” or “evolved” and instead made a clone of Super Rambo Special that played just as poorly.

Part of the issue is that the game is really obtuse about what you’re supposed to do and why. The early section of the game with dark rooms can be entered without ever finding the glow stick, and if you don’t know you’re even supposed to be looking for one, you can spend a lot of time aimlessly wandering in the dark trying to see where to go and what to do. Is there a lightswitch in here? Am I supposed to find a plate to walk over? There’s no hints or text to point you in the right direction. You just have to search every box, turn over every item, kill every guy until you stumble on the item you need for the next zone… or die because you didn’t realize you did it wrong.

Making matters worse is the combat. Rambo starts with his knife and it’s the saddest, dinkiest little knife you’ll ever see. Rambo’s knife barely leaves his own body and it has a tiny little hit box, making it hard to hit guys. Meanwhile enemies will throw themselves at you running while shooting, and the hitboxes on the bullets are huge. You’ll end up taking a ton of damage from the enemies and their bullets while they barely notice you’re doing anything to them… and then you’ll die. Trust me, you’ll die a lot.

The game has a lot of exploration in the Afghani base as you collect the items you need in a crude facsimile of Legend of ZeldaCreated by Nintendo in 1986, the original Legend of Zelda game presented players with a open world to explore, packed with dungeons and monsters all ready to kill them at a moment's notice. The mix of adventure and action game play created a winning game and launched not only a successful series but an entirely new video game genre. or Metal Gear (while being not as good as either of those games). If you manage to get to Trautman and get out, then you’ll get to experience a tank level that’s a lot like Atari’s Battlezone. The developers clearly included this in the game so that they could advertise it on the box, but it feels just as tacked on and out of place here as all the helicopter flying sections felt in all the other Rambo games we’ve played so far. It’s not fun, just a tedious addition before you can see the credits roll and stop playing this game.

That is if you even get that far. I won’t deny I struggled with this game, finding the combat controls to be obnoxious and the item searching to be beyond frustrating. I died a lot, blew threw all my continues a few times, and then just gave up because I realized I didn’t want to play this clunky game again. It didn’t do anything that excited me, it only annoyed me, over and over, while I ended up cussing at Rambo because he sucks and shouldn’t be in this prison camp anyway. At the very least, bring a gun, man. Seriously.

I will say the Amiga version of the game looks and sounds nice. Other versions on the various PC consoles of the era weren’t as good looking (the MSX version is particularly hard to look at, and you just know the guys working on that port had to feel bad going up against Metal Gear) but the right version, with the right coat of paint, at least looked the part. But that’s really the best that I can say. As good as it looked, that doesn’t make up for a terrible game, and Rambo III for PCs was terrible through and through. This is a hard avoid for anyone not so hardcore into Rambo they have to play it all. There are better versions of this title to be found elsewhere.

Or, hell, just go play Metal Gear. It’s a much better version of this formula, and not as annoying to play. Rambo III just can’t compete.