Back in the early NES days, Konami released the original Rush’N Attack to home audiences the United States and in Japan and Europe under the title Green Beret. Starting with Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Konami has slowly started giving their titles the HD makeover treatment with new graphics and gameplay mechanics. The latest in the string of makeover releases is Rush’N Attack on the PSN and Xbox Live.
The original Rush’N Attack was released in 1985 and was most remembered for it’s background in the Cold War setting (the title is a play on Russian Attack). The game armed you with a knife and had you dispatching your enemies with close quarters combat. The remake has the same basic premise with the added addition of stealth, combos, and occasional gunplay. But can these added features save it from the junk heap? Here are the Hots and Nots of Rush’N Attack: Ex-Patriot.
HOT
The Game Lasts
Depending on how much you enjoy the game, this can be a good thing or the longest drag through remake hell should you find you don’t enjoy it yet want to see it through to the bitter end. The game will last approximately 4-6 hours depending on the difficulty you choose and the amount of time you spend navigating the maze-like levels trying to find different secrets and eventually the exit. But with all the problems this game has, it would be hard for you to take in too much in one sitting should you choose to play through it.
NOT
Story
Once again you are placed in the shoes of an unstoppable killing machine murdering the very being of, you guessed it, Russians. The game starts out by setting the story up via comic book style scenes that tell the story of your character, Morrow, and his squad of “world-class knife assassins” inserting behind enemy lines in order to stop the Russian war machine from unleashing the next big horror in their videogame villain career. And yes it’s not even a joke when the game states that you and your team are expert knife assassins. Although they don’t seem to be very skilled at their jobs as they are captured within seconds of the starting cutscene. You are then tasked with setting them free over the course of the game so the big bad Russian bad guys can’t perform super secret Russian experiments on your buddies. Yup that’s the story. Kill Russians. What I would give to kill me some Nazi’s again…*sigh*
Graphics
The only decent part of the graphics is the semi-smooth animations. The graphics themselves look like a very watered down unreal-engine. At first you think the game looks perfectly fine until the camera zooms in on the character or the scenery and it looks like someone threw mud and grass in a blender then threw the results at your television set. The character designs look extremely unflattering to the human eye and are very rough and blocky. You even get to experience some screen tearing towards the later levels of the game.
When the action does zoom down to your character, its usually to initiate a reading session where characters chat between comic bubbles in order to progress the bland story or in order to give you more of the generic missions you love so much (key card collecting anyone?).
Both the voice acting and the soundtrack in this game are uninspired and completely forgettable. Half the time you won’t even realize that there is music playing in the background. When it comes to the voice acting, everyone sounds almost exactly identical and monotone. The small bits of dialogue that you hear instead of read have the potential to put you out faster than your college Physics professor.
Gameplay
Rush’N Attack says it all. Most of the time you will find yourself sprinting up to your opponent and mashing attack buttons praying that they don’t put up an impenetrable guard that you can never break. Sure there are the added stealth kills, if you can quietly sneak behind the patrolling guard to give him a good ‘ol fashioned prison shank to his kidney. But attaining this is near impossible as your character crouch-walks with the grace of a rhinoceros. So the game boils down to run, button mash, run, platform, repeat. It starts to turn from a quick fun fix into a dragging experience that makes you regret the money you just wasted.
VERDICT
All in all, Rush’N Attack, or “Russian Slaughter” if you will, is a game that should be avoided at all costs. The only partially redeeming factor is how long the game lasts but that can still prove to work against it with all the flaws the game has. With a clunky combat system, weak story, terrible voice acting and forgettable music, the game isn’t worth the price that they slapped on it. Unless you love sitting through punishment for fun, avoid this game like an elephant. This is a game that was better off staying a classic.
[Editor’s Note: Rush’N Attack: Ex Patriot was reviewed on the PlayStation 3 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
