85 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
85 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
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RAMBO III
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RAMBO III is a strategy/arcade game from Ocean Software and Taito. It offers
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excellent graphics and animation, three missions, joystick and mouse control,
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and copy protection. The color-only Atari ST version is the basis of this
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review.
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Like the film of the same name and number, RAMBO III concerns the capture and
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imprisonment of Colonel Trautman, Rambo's friend and mentor. The goal of the
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game is to find the Colonel, release him, and escape. While this is easier said
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than done (even for Rambo), you'll find yourself stuck in an enjoyably
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frustrating and wonderfully realized world. Taito's press release states that
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RAMBO III is a role-playing adventure; that's stretching things, unless, of
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course, you really do want to be someone's worst nightmare.
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Colonel Trautman is being held in a fortress in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. In
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Mission One, you must search the rooms and corridors of the fortress, find
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Trautman, and release him. In Mission Two, you must plant eight explosive
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devices in the vehicle compound, and escape from the fortress in a waiting
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helicopter. In Mission Three, you must escape from Afghanistan by stealing a
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tank, and battling your way through those parts of the Soviet army that you
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didn't destroy in Missions One and Two.
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Useful equipment includes arrows (with and without explosive tips), a pistol
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(with silencer), a machine gun, infrared goggles, a mine detector, first-aid
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kits, keys, rubber gloves, and a glow tube. Certain items need batteries or
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another piece of equipment before they can be of any use.
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Obstacles include a maze of a fortress, zillions of Soviet guards, electrified
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doors, pressure-sensitive electronic detectors, and pits with poisoned stakes.
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The vehicle compound is mined.
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In Mission One, the Atari ST graphics display consists of a room in the
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fortress. Guiding Rambo through a door or off the edge of the screen promptly
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displays a new room. Soviet guards, marching in patterns, patrol just about
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every screen. Until he finds other weapons, Rambo is armed with only a knife.
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You can avoid the guards (no points are earned, though), or rip them to shreds
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with the knife. Returning to a room resurrects the guards.
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To the right of the action screen is your score, and a graphic of Rambo's head
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-- his energy indicator. As Rambo gets hit by bullets from the guards, red lines
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replace a bit of his face; when it has become a skull, Rambo pirouettes into a
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grave, and the game ends. A first-aid kit restores all lost energy and can be
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used only once.
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Below the action screen are two windows: One displays a graphic of the current
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weapon; the other displays a graphic of the current item. Arrows and magazines
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come in lots of 99: If you have 20 arrows left, picking up another quiver brings
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the total back to 99, which means you can carry only that number of arrows,
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regardless of how many you pick up.
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In Missions One and Two, Rambo is controlled with a joystick: The stick move
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him in any of eight directions; the button uses the current weapon. In Mission
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Three, the mouse moves the gunsight on the tank, and either button fires the
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gun. Also available in Missions One and Two is an Inventory screen, activated by
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pressing the spacebar: Moving the gunsight to an item or weapon and pressing the
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button selects it. If a piece of equipment is not complete (the infrared
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goggles, for example, need batteries), it cannot be selected. When you're out of
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arrows or bullets, the knife is automatically selected.
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The graphic displays are excellent. The fortress is made of stone blocks with
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wooden floors. There are tables and chairs, plates and silverware, steel
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cabinets, space heaters, maps and wall charts, radios, and all manner of detail
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accurately depicted. Weapons and equipment look like weapons and equipment. In
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the vehicle compound, there are camouflaged trucks and jeeps, piles of junk, and
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bunkers. The guards wear green fatigues and helmets.
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The game itself is not easy, and it'd certainly help matters if Rambo were as
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invincible here as he was in the movie. Stealth is vital. You can't rush the
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guards, nor should you get in their line of vision; doing so sets off the klaxon
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horn and alerts guards in other rooms. Tripping an electronic detector really
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irks them, and for a long time.
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I realize this is an arcade game. Still, because there is strategy involved,
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and because Rambo's death sends you back to the beginning, I would have welcomed
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a save option -- say, a non-permanent RAM save. Taito's price for RAMBO III is
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$29.95, making this great-looking, great-playing game a real bargain, even
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without the save feature.
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RAMBO III is published by Ocean Software and distributed by Taito.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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