Ocean
£7.95
If only life was like the movies - then no man, no law, no war would've stopped me! As it is, I had a terrible time just staying alive let alone securing the release of every Yank north of Saigon.
The game begins just after our muscle-bound megastar has been dropped into the jungle, at the start of his mission - reconnaissance only, you understand, with orders not to engage the enemy. You are armed with an endless supply of grenades and knives but if you do encounter the enemy in the first section it's advisable to rely only on the latter. The noise of the grenades is sure to bring the massed ranks of the Red Army into the battle.
You'll find all the weapons you need randomly scattered around the first part of the game - and there are extra points for collecting them. The only other way to amass points is to kill everything that moves - and a few things that don't! Only when you've crossed the banks of the river into the enemy's camp does the action start to hot up. There you have to locate the hostage and release him before heading north again to free the rest of his compatriots.
Rambo is best described as a thinking man's Commando. That game starts fast and gets faster until you end up like a one-man whirlwind. Rambo develops into a solid shoot 'em up but it just doesn't seem to be such a drain on the old adrenalin. Somehow it lacks the excitement of Elite's number one hit - perhaps it's the larger playing area, maybe it's the slower start or could it just be the amount of strategy involved? After all, who ever heard of Rambo having to think?
BARGAIN BASEMENT
Never a man to miss out on a spicy low-pricey, Jonathan Davies sifts through this month's batch of good, bad and downright ugly budget games.
The Hit Squad
£2.99
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies
Another rechauffe offering which features everyone's favourite diplomat. The plot is predictable enough - stampede through the jungle committing multiple homicide in all directions. Likewise through a village, rescuing a prisoner, leaping aboard a helicopter and so on.
I seem to remember this being one of the first licensed games that anybody actually liked, and it still looks quite good all these years later. Only 'quite' mind. The scrolling is the sort that waits 'til you get to the edge of the screen, then frantically whizzes the next bit on. This looks crude and makes it tricky to see who's going to be next to shoot you. Otherwise the graphics are generally fine, particularly the village houses which can be reduced to ruins with one grenade. Sound is pretty puny (these were the pre-128 days after all) which is a shame as this game is really all about massive explosions and ear-wax curdling screams.
As a full-pricer it would look decidedly crap these days, but at three quid Rambo is a darned sight better than most of the purpose-built cheapie stuff around.
Coming, erm, now actually, to a cinema near you...
THE COMPLETE YS GUIDE TO FILM AND TELLY GAMES
Knowing full well what a square-eyed bunch you are, we thought it was about time you were given the facts on film and television licenced games. Once again, JONATHAN DAVIES was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
(Cough. Deep, manly voice.)
'In the beginning there were loads and loads of Speccy games. Loads of them. They sold all right, but not exactly in enormous numbers. The trouble was, you see, that none of them seemed particularly exciting. They had nothing that caught the public eye. They were just computer games. Had no 'cred'.
Then a small cog within a long-since-extinct software house had an idea.
"Why don't we give our next game the same name as an incredibly popular film? Then everyone would buy it just because they'd seen the film and they'd foolishly think the game would be just as good. How about i, eh?"
"Er, we could do, I suppose."
"Great."
"But what if the film company finds out? They might sue us or something."
"Oh yeah."
"Tcha."
"I know - we could ask them first."
"That's a point. Go on then."
"What? Me?"
"Yeah. Give them a ring and ask if they'd mind."
"Oo-er. Cripes. Okay then." (Dials very long trans-Atlantic phone number.)
"Hullo. We'd like to name our new game after your film and we were wondering if it was okay by you. Right... yes... oh, I see." (Cups hand over receiver.) "They want us to give them lots of money."
"Erm, well in that case we'd better." (Removes hand.) "Yes, that'll be fine. We'll send you some right away. Bye."
"Super."
"But. er..."
"What?"
"How are we going to come up with a game that's anything like the film?"
"I don't know really."
"How about if we have a bloke walking around shooting people?"
"That sounds fine. I'll program it right away."
And so the film and telly licence was born. It... cough. Choke.
Oops. There goes the deep, manly voice.
Anyway, film and telly games, eh? Everyone's doing them these days, as they're one of the few remaining ways of making serious money with computer games. Run a grubby finger down the charts and you'll find nearly all the top-sellers are film and telly licences. (Or arcade conversions, of course.)
But why do we keep buying them? After all, just because a game's named after a really brill film doesn't mean it's going to be any good, does it? Surely we aren't buying them simply because of the flashy name on the box?
Erm, well in the old days, software houses assumed this to be the case, and chucked out a stream of absolutely appalling games with 'big name' titles. Things like Miami Vice, The Dukes Of Hazard and Highlander were all pretty dreadful, but it was hoped that they'd sell on the strength of their names. But we weren't fooled. Oh no. The games didn't sell well, and the companies were forced to think again.
Eventually they came up with... the 'bloke walking around shooting things' idea. And they've used it more or less ever since. Lucky then that they tend to be jolly good all the same, and sometimes come up with the odd original idea to spice things up (like The Untouchables did, or perhaps Back To The Future Part II).
RATINGS
As always seems to be the case, the trusty YS ratings system doesn't really seem adequate when it comes to film and telly games. So here's what we've put together instead...
LIGHTS
What does it look like? Nice? Or not very nice at all? (You mean are the graphics any good? Ed) Er, yes. That's it in a nutshell. (Then why didn't you just say the first place? Ed) Erm...
CAMERA
How does the general atmosphere compare to the film or telly programme the game's meant to go with? Have programmers just taken a bog-standard game and stuck a flashy name on it? Or have they made an effort to incorporate a bit of the 'feel' of the original?
ACTION
Does the plot follow along the same sort of lines as the film or telly programme? Is there plenty action-packedness? And is the game the same all way through, or does it follow the original's twists and turns?
CUT
Um, how does the game compare to all the licences around at the moment? Is it better? Or worse? In other words, is it a 'cut' above the rest? (is that really the best you can manage? Ed)
RAMBO
Ocean
This one goes back - a bit, being one of the first film games ever. (Quite possibly number two after Ghostbusters.) And, of course, it stars Rambo who walks round shooting people. He's got a large map to wander round though and plenty of weapons to collect, along with an overhead view to make them easier to spot. After plodding round the jungle fighting off enemy soldiers for a bit he comes across the enemy village which can only be got into at a certain point (a bridge, in fact). In there he finds the hostage he's after, who needs cutting free, and then moves on to find a helicopter and fly it to freedom.
Considering its age (five-ish), Rambo isn't bad at all. The range of weapons available is well thought-out, with the ones that do the most damage tending to attract the attention of more enemy troops. The only trouble is the jerky 'flipping'scroll system and the graphics, which tend to be mainly empty black spaces. A good one.
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