Download Rambo III

Rambo III is a top-down shoot-em-up based off the old Rambo movies of the 80’s. It proves very faithful to the third movie in that it involves that age-old chunky commando, John Rambo, and his adventures in Afghanistan. Your mission in the game is rescue your various friends, who have been captured by the sinister Soviets (ah, the most durable of all game villains) and are being held hostage in an Afghani Fortress. With the help of some Afghan freedom fighters, you are smuggled into the fortress, and then you are on your own.

The game is ridiculously unrealistic, but still very fun. How a shirtless American commando with only a knife can stand up against several hundred angry Soviets armed with AK-47’s is any one’s guess. But anyway, you make your way through the castle meeting lots of resistance, including enemies such as attack dogs and so forth. The game is surprisingly creative with its objects, such as you can collect bones to throw at the dogs, and find night-vision glasses and so forth. And that is pretty much it, concerning plot and game play.

Compatibility: works just fine with Dosbox.
Sound: No sound, as far as I can tell.
Graphics: exceedingly good for the year 1989: 256 colors, relatively small pixels.

Controls: probably the only bad thing about this game, but if you are used to old action games, unlike me, you should do just fine: mouse to move around, click to shoot or stab, spacebar to check inventory and choose items. Also, I found myself often getting “stuck” in nooks and crannies in the furniture and so forth (I guess Rambo is too beefy to get through the doorways!). The interface can seem weird at first, but you usually get the hang of it pretty fast.

All in all, Rambo III deserves a 4 rating, because of the funky controls and how unrealistic the weapons are. But in the end, this game is very clever and advanced for its age. In terms of learning curve: the average gamer should find the game a bit difficult in the beginning, but the interface is quite easy to understand.

In my opinion, this game is really fun and should occupy you for hours if you are a serious player. If you like the movies and the action, give it a try. If you are a more strategy-simulation type, this is probably not for you.

I found a way to reconfigure the game (simply delete the CONFIG.DAT file and when you run the game you can configure your graphic card, your sound device and the controls: mouse, joystic, keyboard). Sebatianos