Review: Tunnel Rats (PC)
By Tim Hage on May 18th, 2009 at 10:01PM
I’m sure that almost none of you have ever heard of Tunnel Rats (Formerly titled 1968 Tunnel Rats), but I have actually been paying attention to this game for several months now. Truth be told, I was assured by the mind behind the game (Mr. Uwe Boll himself) that I would receive an early review copy. Well, I didn’t. So, already starting on the wrong foot, let’s see how the game is…..
Tunnel Rats continues the story after the movie left off, but nobody watched the movie (except me) so you don’t care anyway and you certainly didn’t miss anything. The movie’s (and the game’s) story is based on the groups of soldiers in the Vietnam war whose job was to clear out the hundreds of miles of tunnel systems that the Vietcong had dug out. Normally, I’m all over old war stories, especially in FPS form, but much to my dismay, Tunnel Rats is a horrible foray into wars of the past.
At a glance, the tunnel systems in the game are well made. They successfully make you feel lost and a little turned around, but really, this is just because the levels are so repetitive and poorly designed that you aren’t sure if you really are lost and running in circles or if you’re going in the right direction. This isn’t helped by the fact that 90% of the game consists of just running around, killing Vietcong soldiers without any goal to speak of. Sure, you’re trying to regroup with other American soldiers, but you’re really just running through Vietcong camps and tunnel systems until you find the next crashed chopper. You then have a gun battle where you single-handedly fight off an entire army of Vietcong troops and move into the next set of tunnels.
Tunnel Rats relies on a checkpoint save system. Although annoying, this is usually bearable, but when you’re running into constant, insta-kill traps, you start to wish for a quick save button. In an attempt to make this game fun, or at the least entertaining, they added a system where you collect dog tags from downed American soldiers, and “trophies” (an ear) from the dead Vietcong troops. It took me a while to realize that these actions do absolutely nothing. I kid you not, these have no use except to be counted at the end of each level *EDIT: I have been told that if you collect enough ‘trophies’, you will be given a larger health maximum (Thanks, Schiffo)*. On top of that, you can also collect an ear from soldiers whose head has (literally) been blown off. How does that work?
Add all this up with a poor aiming system, orange (yes, orange) blood and very poorly acted American accents, this game turns out to be a cocktail of painful, low quality “entertainment”. Believe it or not, there was one point where the game had me excited with an interesting story development. As you crawl through the tunnel systems, your character slowly starts to go mad. It’s very subtle, but you notice him treating war with a different perspective. It is actually interesting to watch the development. I was excited to see the final stages of madness, but it doesn’t go anywhere. The game just ends with a boom, leaving you disappointed, annoyed and wishing you could have your 3-6 hours of life back.
To be brutally blunt, this game isn’t even entertaining as a mindless shooter. You might as well take the money you where planning to spend on this game, place it in a blender with some ice and milk, blend it up and drink it for breakfast. I guarantee you’ll get more satisfaction. This is definitely our lowest score given on any of our reviews.
Scores
- Graphics: 3
Sure, the graphics are great. Oh, this is 2009, not 1999? Oh, someone should have told the developers that.
- Storyline: 2
Storyline? There was a story? I though I was just killing Nazis Vietnam troops. Oh, wait, there was something about a goal….yeah, I’ve got nothing.
- Gameplay: 6
It’s kinda hard to screw up the gameplay of an FPS. You can walk around, you can shoot, you pass the test.
- Controls: 6
Again, controls are pretty straight-forward when it comes to FPSs.
- Lasting Appeal: 0
I’m dead serious. If anyone plays through this game a second time, I think they will have earned themselves a spot in the record books.
Overall: 3 Olives
This looks like my sort of game :)
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I lolled. Entertaining review. Pity the game isn’t.
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i converted the pc code on this game and it runs smooth on my commodore 64
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“In an attempt to make this game fun, or at the least entertaining, they added a system where you collect dog tags from downed American soldiers, and “trophies” (an ear) from the dead Vietcong troops. It took me a while to realize that these actions do absolutely nothing.”
That’s not correct if you collect enough ears or dog tags you get additional healthbars. Look at the square under the health bars. It fills up if you collect things, if it is full a health bar is added
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Oh, I see. I didn’t notice such a change, but I’m glad that it at least had a purpose.
*Post edited to reflect proper information.
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This seems like a insanely interesting game. Curiosity called and I had to go check out the trailer for the film. I found it on YouTube http://bit.ly/TunnelRats . Has anyone seen the trailer or the movie? It looks like its gonna be a change in pace for movies dealing with war. What do you think?
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I’ve seen the movie. For Uwe Boll’s standards, it wasn’t bad. I found it entertaining, although the ending is pretty abrupt. Now that I think of it, it’s close to the ending the game had.
Another movie by him that isn’t horrible was Postal. As a movie, it was pretty bad, but it stayed rather close to the game and for that, I commend him.
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Finished the game, saw see movie. Relations between those are shallow.
I agree that movie wasn’t so bad (neither good). Also the Postal had it’s moments and Dungeon Siege was pretty descent.
I got my review copy thanks to Boll too, through Steam. And I kept my eye on it since announcement.
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Oh, you’re a lucky one, Lew, he stiffed me on the review copy. I was promised one many months back when he said his publisher would take care of it and I needn’t worry…seems I shouldn’t have listened.
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Well… as lucky as TR player ever can be. :D
Don’t be very angry for him. You don’t wanna box with him, I guess. ;)
http://thumbs.filmstarts.de/wallpaper/UweBoll_01.jpg
Maybe publisher was changed and your contacts weren’t passed on? I even can’t remember which publisher deals with hard copy? Steam is only for digital download.
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