Being a fan of the films I was looking forward to this and it stays true enough to the films following the storylines which is great to see.
Most of the levels are rail shooters with the ability to duck for cover. These are pretty fun offering an increase in difficulty level after level - except toward the end that I'll touch on later - with different enemies and parts of the environment being able to be blown up or ripped to shreds by bullets. They also mix it up enough and don't go on forever meaning that boredom isn't an issue.
Other parts of levels are QTE which are unforgiving early on with one mistake meaning death. Playing this on the computer I found this difficult at times, however with controllers being easier to use than a keyboard in this respect, I don't think people playing the console versions of this game would have too many problems. After the early levels though, there is an upgrade that can be unlocked that means not pressing the button in time doesn't result in death.
The third type of levels are with the old bow and arrow. This is when the stealth comes into play. Enemies need to be taken out quickly or bang! Rambo gets a bullet between the eyes if he is spotted.
In the early trailers the visuals were criticised for being PS2 like, and they aren't great, with mainly Rambo looking a little bit weird, but everything is clear and some levels offer some nice visuals and scenery and are levels above anything on PS2.
As I touched on earlier, the difficulty goes up astronomically toward the final stage. The jump is way too high. I completed all of the levels on the middle difficulty, but I had to change it for the final one. The main difference between these difficulties is that with the middle difficulty level, once Rambo dies 5 times the level must be restarted. Whereas for the easiest difficulty, the retires are unlimited. I ended up dying 13 times once I finally completed the final level. In saying that, higher scores mean more unlockables and skills to use, so the better you are the easier it becomes, and similarly, the player can always replay earlier levels to skill up for the harder levels toward the end.
Overall this will not win any end of year awards but it's a bit of fun, and for what it is is made well. It's disappointing that it's a rail game with fixed movement though. I feel like the First Blood levels would have made for perfect stealth levels a la MGS. Maybe the developers could have made it like Die Hard Trilogy, with each film offering different genres of gameplay.
Gameplay 3.5/5
Graphics 3/5
Sound 4/5
Difficulty 4/5
Originality 2/5
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