Time to finish off Season 2 of The Angry Video Game Nerd, and we have quite the review to go out on – Rambo, on the NES!
Now, this is a game I actually had for my NES when I was a kid. I have vague memories of playing it and not having a good time at all. Granted, this is when I was about 5 or 6 – I could barely read at the time, so being able to understand what I was supposed to do just wasn’t happening. That’s really it. I think I eventually sold the game when I was about 12 or so and that’s that. Only later on in life would I play the game again and see for myself just how odd it is. It’s not terrible, but it isn’t good either for many reasons.
Rambo on NES… aka Zelda 2 without the fantasy stuff.
It seems like James has a similar opinion, and what we get from him is quite the tear down. We have a game that follows the film its based off of far too accurately story wise, but seems to go random with the enemies and weapons. Difficult game play that’s, ironically, basically the same as Zelda II. Buggy to boot, the only way James can show the end of the game is to put in a password. One of those super long passwords, which of course gets its own rant. All of this for a final battle that looks to be pure chaos.
Last, but not least, he turns Murdok into a frog. Yeah, that’s a thing in Rambo for the NES. Just watch the episode if you don’t already know about this little oddity in gaming.
As a bonus we get a few additional Rambo games, on the Sega Master System. The first is a Commando or Ikari Warriors styled run and gun shooter, a popular genre for the mid to late 80’s. Actually, this game seems really similar to Ikari Warriors. Not terrible, but it also doesn’t look to be all that great.
Last up is Rambo 3, which uses the Master System’s light gun. It looks to be a decent on-rails shooter in the style of Operation Wolf, but James runs into one major issue – his gun won’t work! So much for reviewing that!
His face as the gun fails on him. Priceless.
Lastly, the Nerd takes some time to cover the fact that, at the time of the making of this video, a new Rambo film was due to be released. As we know, this film was going to be called “John Rambo” and later was changed to just “Rambo.” He discussed this as a joke in the Chronologically Confused About Bad Movie and Video Game Sequel Titles episode, but sure enough that’s what happened! Last I checked the film was underwhelming to most audiences.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
The episode holds up well enough. I’d say the Nerd is just at the right level of angry for this one – more annoyed than outright angry. The criticisms are pretty valid – I don’t think James had to stretch for stuff to say about the NES title, and his look at the first of the Master System games is a pretty good, albeit terse overview. The rant at the end about the film titles was well deserved, as that was a trend at the time to name films in that odd way. While certainly dating the video to early 2008, it still is a valid thing to discuss.
All around, a good enough episode. Note one I’d watch over and over, but it has its high points, especially with the additional Master System games being covered, which is enough for me to rate it a little better than some other episode of equal length and quality.