Rough Ranger
I'm not quite sure if this is good in this forum or would be better in Arcade Alley, but I happened upon a really freaking weird game in a small arcade a few weeks ago. It's called Rough Ranger, and... well, what piqued my eyeballs was the fact that the game was a blatant rip-off. Just a mere glance at the screen told me this game was practically an inferior Rolling Thunder. Naturally, I had to give it a try, and...
Well, before I get to the actual game, let me just describe the intro. The two players (who are shirtless commandos with berets on, by the way) sit in a room at a table with a girl, and then some of the bad guys walk in. They jump and prance around for about fifteen seconds while the heroes do NOTHING to save the girl, and as soon as the girl gets snatched, they finally rise off of their worthless duffs and start the mission that could have been avoided if they had actually shot at the kidnappers then and there. WHAT THE FRICK, SAYETH I.
Rough Ranger itself is absolutely a rip of Rolling Thunder, and naturally, it's inferior. The graphics are meh, but the sound and music are totally bad. A real poor rendition of Bach's classic prelude (whose official name eludes me at the moment), and... well, it ain't Gyruss. What's worse is the control. It's not as if RT had the most rigid scheme, but RR's control is fairly unresponsive. It was made even worse by the particular joystick of that machine. I went into MAME to confirm if the control really was that bad, and it was only marginally improved on the emulation. Its only saving grace is that it is more lenient than RT, less difficult overall and allowing for unlimited continues.
Now, here's the kicker. I found something highly unorthodox out about RR when I looked it up on MAME trivia, and I'm not sure how reliable this source is, but this was apparently marketed as the first openly gay video game! I guess I could sort of believe that with the shirtless beret-clad commandos fighting helmeted bad guys in shocking pink stretch pants, but I'm still a bit skeptic on the matter.
Soooo... RR is fubar on more than one wavelength. If you haven't played it, you certainly aren't missing much, but it's worth it just to see how screwed up it is.
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Maybe a flyer or something advertising the game would confirm the above.......
Originally Posted by Technosis
