Thursday, 21 April 2016 00:00

It’s Sad When A Developer Draws First Blood

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How in the hell do you take one of Sylvester Stallone’s most iconic works (before sequel bastardization) and turn it into a war epic that goes terribly wrong, then wait two complete years to let the shame die down and release a DLC as if it is an apology?

Ask Teyon and Reef Entertainment, two companies that need their proverbial asses kicked for the mockery and mess that became of their licensed property.

Rambo: The Video Game is what initially happens when adaptation goes terribly wrong.  The story tells the flashbacks of John Rambo at his funeral, taking us through the playable memories of the Rambo franchise sans that fourth entry.  A rushed story piecemealed from the development house’s personal favorite moments from each film without a concrete ending nor further reference to Rambo’s alleged funeral make this title an infraction that has become the worst rape of a licensed property in the history of gaming.

So to, Teyon and Reef Entertainment, you have to pay the cost to be the title boss!

I don’t care how much money was shelled out to get the licensing rights, you do NOT kill John Rambo, damn it!  It just does NOT happen.  Great way to piss off the First Blood fans and kill your development house.  That isn’t great story retelling, or doing something different with the plot, it’s being an A-1 fanboy asshole.  Not cool.

If you couldn’t afford to treat the title with respect, you shouldn’t have bothered.  The character likeness looks NOTHING LIKE THE ACTORS!!!!  The entire quality and assurance department needs to be fired and blackballed from ever working in this industry again.  John Rambo looks like a car crash victim that underwent plastic surgery with unsealed Play-Doh.  He’s the MAIN CHARACTER.  Stevie Wonder noticed the hatchet job done on him.

Seriously, you couldn’t hire character designers to draw Sylvester Stallone right?  You mean to tell me the entire budget was blown on securing the license and nothing else, because thus far DLC and all that is the type of mess it looks like.

The rest of the cast of characters look either like Botox caricatures of the actors from the film, or doesn’t remotely represent them at ALL.  Salt is poured further over this open wound with the voice acting.  Let’s forget the traditional way of recording actors in the studio.  Let’s just dub the analog voice print from the film; gee willikers, that’ll do it!

Directing cut scenes around cut, copy, and pasted dialogue never works on rendering!  That is just absolutely lazy development, up there with ripping assets off the Unity store without modification.  Seriously, we couldn’t work a deal to get most of these retired actors into the booth to reprise their roles?  If I wanted to hear a bad voice print coming through an analog stereo speaker with visuals from the PS2 era, I’d go to a 1950s era drive in and play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Everybody hated this game in 2014.  Everybody.  There was no redeeming factor in its release, and in a perfect world both Teyon and Reef Entertainment would have been shamed into bankruptcy, and its employees into obscurity.  I’ll give leniency to those that didn’t work on this craptastic shiftest; those individuals should have been barred out of the industry for no less than a 20-year period for guilt by association and bad taste in employment.

Yet in 2016, Teyon and Reef Entertainment have nerve enough to release all-new DLC straight to the PC platform.  The road to hell is always paved with good intentions, right?  This new entry is right up there with going to a restaurant and finding hair and roaches in your food.  You report it to the manager, they apologize; in consolation you’re given a free meal with one less hair in it.

Nobody cares that it is visually stunning and such an artistic feat for you.

All the money poured into this two year in the making DLC has NOT corrected any of the original issues from the initial release, and LACKED any attempts to make Rambo look correct. 

Hiding his face behind a goatee is not going to win you an E3 invite anytime soon.  Making him mute because he obviously has no dialogue that can be ripped from any film in this prequel parade of excess does you no favors, either. 
No one cares that it is a free DLC; this is just that bad that you can’t even give it away.  Underpants gnomes don’t even want it.  Prisoners in Guantanamo Bay wouldn’t mess with this if that was their only form of entertainment for the next hundred years.  So, just stop.  The hole is dug so deep you’ve buried yourself six times over.

Be shamed.  Rambo on NES is still far superior than your muck and looks a hell of a lot better and more character life like than everything you’ve thrown under the bus.

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Gwendolyn L. Spelvin

Gwendolyn L. Spelvin is a philosopher of the Edward Bernays Century of Self, a follower of Sigmund Freud’s explorations of the subconscious mind through chemical means, and an avid enthusiast of Adolph Hitler’s short-lived ballet career before he rose through the ranks of the Third Reich. Spelvin had dedicated her post academic career as an innovative writer that creates a written vision to prove misanthropic tendencies works with an audience, crafting a message that sways public approval towards her client’s products to the guarantee of the masses blindly supporting the company agenda without them knowing it. A dirty job, but someone has to pacify the idiots who know not what they blindly support into a continuing trek of oblivion. Last, but not least, Spelvin is a firm believer in the annihilation of the JUSTIN BELIBERS. Currently she is working on her cookbook, To Serve A Hot Man: Jeffrey Dahmer's Classic Recipes due out this Christmas.