Games of the Abstract: Rambo (2008)

 

Developer: Sega

Publisher: Sega

One or Two Players

Arcade

 

There were two productions of Rambo in 2008. One, despite the confusion suggesting a reboot in its stripped down title, is a fourth film in a franchise originally based on a novel by David Morrell. This review is instead about the 2008 arcade game, released by Sega on their Sega Lindbergh arcade system, and connected to this resurgence in John Rambo, one of Sylvester Stallone's most iconic cinematic characters when Morrell's source material was adapted. The 2008 arcade game is also one you can still find around English sea sides, among this era of late 2000s and early 2010s machinery still ready to purchase rather than retrospective cabinets to preserve, so it is a case of a machine you could encounter in the wild as they were built for.

This is an on-rail shooter, and that in itself means having to point out this is not Rambo: The Video Game (2014), another on-rail shooter for the likes of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, which was developed by Polish developers Teyon and was not well regarded. That game however also covered the original film First Blood (1982) in the franchise. In vast contrast, Sega's Rambo, over six levels, ignores that first film, and ignores that film's story. That begin about John Rambo, as immortalised by Sylvester Stallone, as a mentally damaged Vietnam War veteran who, entering the town of Hope, Washington is antagonised so much he starts a war against the sheriff there which eventually leads escalates. This focuses entirely on Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988), where he was re-evaluated as a Vietnam vet and war hero going out into the world as a one man army for America.

There have been many Rambo videogames over the years - an infamous 1987 NES game by Pack-In-Video tantalises for being a weird beast in its licensed skin, between Rambo fighting robots and a digitised Charles Napier being turned into a frog - and they, like all the other popular culture around Rambo, encompasses the character he became. Rambo became the action film star, rather than the bleak Vietnam War critique that First Blood was. First Blood was a film directed by Ted Kotcheff, a Canadian filmmaker of Bulgarian descent behind Wake in Fright (1971), a sobering Australian drama of a man descending into alcoholism and lunacy that edges horror, and First Blood is a different animal from its sequels. It is an exceptional film, one where you find a film re-evaluating the Vietnam War's lasting legacy whilst still being an action film, and is something worth everyone's time to see. First Blood Part II, in a drastic tonal shift, is an action film which has Rambo return to Vietnam to effectively win the war in post-mortem, leading to the likes of Chuck Norris' Missing in Action franchise to follow the template, Rambo III following suit.

The Rambo we got, which even had a 1986 children's animated series and toys, was jingoistic and cheesy, and in hindsight, you would show utter concern for this images being portrayed. Time however passed, and with the eighties being in the past and nodded to in parody and tribute, from Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993) with Charlie Sheen or the videogame Broforce (2015) nodding to "Rambro", this image is dilated, and with Sega's Rambo, the political hindsight is airbrushed out, which in itself also presents a perverse irony. Rambo by Sega, even if with the rights from Studio Canal to use footage from those two sequels in game, and splice the gameplay around them, wants to run away from the contexts of the films as far as possible, whether deliberately or because, following in the traditional of Sega's light gun games, this is pure campy arcade shooting which just happened to take the cool looking passages and not realise the material it came from. The game plays in a curious chronological order with Part III the first level in media res, with a tangent back into Part II for two levels, than back to Part III before and after level one for the climax. Never does the game mention at all the context these sections are within, that the second film is Rambo trying to rescue prisoners of wars still in Vietnam, held by what is revealed to be members of the Soviet Union with the last remnants of the Vietcong in their entourage, or that the conflict in the third film was set in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union during the real Soviet-Afghan War.

Real history complicates things, as with all depictions of conflict in pop culture, in that the Afghan mujahideen Rambo is teaming up with in the film, and the game here, found itself after the fall of the Soviet in conflict with the future Taliban, in civil wars between 1992-6, but had the Taliban's original leadership fighting in the Soviet–Afghan War in its own ranks for certain factions beforehand¹. Hindsight makes this film complicated and makes it strange, as with First Blood Part II being a reflection on the Vietnam War, when Sega's game strips away all references to this, and even has grunts that look like generic Russian or European soldiers in both periods here. It makes the license and all its baggage just the stardom of Sylvester Stallone (digitally and in the film footage) in the red headband with a machine gun here instead, which strips out so much context regardless of the player's political opinions of the stories the films depicted. Even with the live action footage, Rambo does not reference the original contexts of these two films, entirely stripped (with text narration) of any politics even in those scenes, mostly the action set pieces out of context entirely.

It is a traditional light gun game, one Sega made many of, only using this intellectual property in this case, where you find yourself machine gunning through enemies. There are no secondary weapons outside of special events, but you have a rage meter, which when built up and activated, gives you greater attack power and, if fully developed, even invulnerability. Sega, with their legacy in arcade games, clearly built their Rambo with a lot of experience from the past. Reloading is easy, swiping your gun off-screen briefly, and the challenge is that enemies have meters over their heads to prioritise the ones who will cause damage and shoot first, alongside incoming grenades and rockets to shot out the sky before they reach you. The aesthetic is entirely whether you can appreciate bog standard jungle and desert settings, with a tangent in a building with prisoners of war being tortured. This in itself may be off putting when, for this era of Sega Lindbergh arcade system, you also got games like OutRun 2 SP SDX (2006), an update of the original Outrun 2 (2003), a vibrant racing game great in any version, Let's Go Jungle!: Lost on the Island of Spice (2006), a more playful and colourful take on the light gun game on this arcade system, and Virtua Fighter 5 (2005). There is a feeling that, whether lower budget for a game or working around the license's restrictions, this feels like a low budget game in how it is put together. Even in terms of art style, a lot is entirely based around acquiring the rights to Rambo, but could have been a generic mercenary game which just has events inspired from Rambo set pieces.

The special events are recreations of set pieces from the films, like the first in level one, the battle when the cavalry come in at Afghanistan, where you have to fight a helicopter with a tank. Going back in time, both to First Blood Part II and to earlier in Rambo III, where you rescue Colonel Sam Trautman, these include boss battles with tanks and helicopters which end with having to time an explosive arrow shot in one hit, or specific quick time events where you shoot specific parts of the screen to succeed. These do slow the game down, as you have lengthy instructions for each part of these events, which is respectful of the player's time, but means so much of the pace being taken out of the game in the midst of this. Rambo altogether is playable, but with the sense that even as a fun game, its take as a licensed game is limiting in personality and the playful blue skies attitude of Sega games. Let's Go Jungle!, already mentioned, was one of their own intellectual properties in this genre which had a more playful tone and spectacle even if you factor in fighting giant insects over grunts. Whilst this is a literal cheesy American action film you can play, with greater emphasis on splicing in the film clips, this does feel limited in what was done. A lot of the humour feels unintentional rather than Sega imaging what ridiculous set piece they could do inspired by these type of films, such as the same still image of actor Richard Crenna with no expression able to express disappointment and praise equally when you get your stage score per level. In truth, a Sega pastiche of Rambo would have been a much more entertaining experience just in terms of a lick of paint, once the soreness in the hand from plastic rifle recoil and even with the respect for this I do have dissipates.

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1) The Taliban in Afghanistan, written by Lindsay Maizland for Council on Foreign Relations, and last updated on August 17th 2022.