There are bad games and then there are bad games. The former sting and disappoint a bit but the later hurt like a broken bone or a bad breakup. The later is what makes you question your life. Rambo: The Videogame is one of the later. Reef Entertainment's attempt at picking at your nostalgia nerve is easily one of the worst games I've ever played, and not in a charming it's so bad it's good sort of way. No, Rambo: The Videogame, with all of its shoddy action, dated visuals and horrific progression is downright terrible.

Fun fact -- though the Rambo movies are known for their gracious violence, First Blood's kill-count stands at a measly one (and it was accidental) death once the credits roll. The movie carries a pretty clear anti-violence message but apparently no one told the developers at Reef Entertainment this as your one objective throughout the campaign, which spans each of the Rambo movies (minus the 2008 film), is to shoot and maim absolutely everything. It's a bit strange that the game is supposed to be a retelling of the movies but there are so many inconsistencies here. Remember the part in First Blood where John Rambo shot up forty some police officers for no apparent reason? Yeah. Me neither.

"...you'll just be aiming and shooting."

I wish I could sit here and tell you that the inconsistencies from film to game are Rambo's biggest problem, but unfortunately it's far from it. This is an on-rails first-person shooter so you won't be moving Rambo around, you'll just be aiming and shooting. Now, I get it, the game is supposed to be like an arcade shooter ala Lethal Enforcers or Time Crisis (Rambo even unapologetically borrows Time Crisis' cover mechanic) but in 2014 it just feels cheap. The difference between a game like Time Crisis and Rambo is simple, more often than not you played Time Crisis with a lot of other stimuli. You played it with friends before a movie or at a Theme Park arcade. Rambo asks you to take that mechanic and turn it into a full-priced experience and it's no-where near as successful.

Part of the problem of Rambo is that there's almost no skill involved in the entire game. If you're using a controller you'll be successful blind firing and just spraying bullets at whatever is moving and if you're using a mouse and keyboard it's just a matter of clicking on enough enemy's heads fast enough to clear the stage. There are also stealth sections and quick-time events thrown in for good measure and to be honest, I actually started having legitimate fun in some of the stealth sections, but the game made sure that didn't last long. There are so many bugs that it was almost impossible to stay out of sight, which triggered an automatic mission-failure. Oh, and you don't know frustration until you've played a QuickTime event with a mouse and keyboard.

"...decided to go for more realistic approach...and have failed miserably."

Visually Rambo: The Videogame is a strange beast. The developers decided to go for more realistic approach...and have failed miserably. The majority of the visuals, especially the character animations and their faces look like something that would have been subpar in the late PS2 era. I'm dumbfounded that the developers didn't go for a more artistic or cartoony approach once the character models started looking like they did. The audio is another interesting choice as they used clips directly from the film, and those 20-some-year-old clips sound just about as bad you'd think against the backdrop of a modern day video game.

It's not enough to say that Rambo: The Videogame is bad. It's ugly, it's terrible and it's a huge letdown. Sadly, what could have been at least an enjoyable shooter ended up being on the same level as games like Superman 64 - infamously bad. Want to interact with the Rambo universe? Watch the movies again. Want to play an on-rails shooter for some reason? Play Time Crisis. Long story short, there's no reason to play Rambo; at all.