Rush’N Attack is a port of an arcade game called Green Beret. Why did they change the name? No idea, but I think it doesn’t matter all that much. The name is kind of fun and is a play on Russian Attack. I assume that is what Konami or their American office was going for.
This would’ve been a nice game to rent for a weekend. It fits perfectly with the other games my brother and I would rent. Konami had several games like this that were solid games you could beat in under an hour.
Games like this can be fun to play now and then. It feels like it could’ve been an action movie with its one guy against a superpower plot. The gameplay and graphics are good, and it is challenging enough to keep you playing.
TLDR: Rush’N Attack is a Fun but Short Arcade Game.
Narrative
Believe it or not, this game has a story! It is a simple one that is similar to other Arcade games of the late 80s. Those are the bad guys, you’re the good guy, and you have to stop them from doing something.
In this case, you play as a Green Beret/Commando who is taking on the Soviet Army with nothing but a knife. Regarding video games, this seems more grounded than other ambitious you vs. the world stories. Just writing that out feels crazy.
You only have to fight a part of the Soviet Union. You don’t even have to overthrow their government or free hundreds of captives. The goal is destroying a nuclear weapon.
You can move through the Soviet Union with ease, and you can gain access to nuclear weapons easily. This was an arcade game, so you don’t have to go around gathering in formation or keys to get where you needed to go.
There is also a goal of saving some prisoners of war (POWs). I’m not sure where these people were captured or why you must save them, but it doesn’t matter much.
In the end, assuming you could get through the four levels, you blow up the nuclear weapon. You’re also standing right next to it when it blows up, so I’m guessing this was a suicide mission. As ridiculous as this all sounds, it is a decent story for an arcade game.
Gameplay
This is a type of beat’em up game. Similar to games like Kung Fu, Altered Beast, and Last Battle. You move your character from left to right and fight waves of enemies. There are projectiles to avoid, and it does test your reaction time.
One thing that I don’t like about this game is the controls. You press up to jump. This creates the problem of accidentally jumping when you try to face the opposite direction. It is very annoying!
These are all one-hit deaths. This is typical of an arcade game. The developer wants you to pump quarters into the machine, and having one hit deaths helps this. The biggest issue is not having continues.
The game gives you four lives and rewards you with extra lives as your score increases, but it can be frustrating early on as you adjust to the controls. Even though it is a short game, having continues would have made this a better experience.
It took me some time to get used to these controls. I’m so used to B for attack and A for jump that this was an adjustment. I would often lose a life by using the A button to jump instead of pressing up. Eventually, I adjusted to it, but it was very annoying early on.
So, how do you fight off the waves of suicidal enemies that usually charge at your character? Well, you have a knife that happens to be painted the same color as your uniform.
The enemies aren’t anything special. They start simple enough so the player can get used to things, and they ramp up in difficulty as the game continues. Here is a list of the enemies:
- Soldiers
- Supply Runners
- Gunners
- Combat Specialists
- German Shepherds
- Jetpack Soldiers
- Parachute Gunners
- Gyrocopters
- Flamethrowers
The game is short. There are only four stages, but this is typical of arcade games at the time. Here are the stages:
- Marshalling Area, which ends with a few waves of enemies.
- Harbor, which ends with a pack of German Shepherds
- Air Base, which ends with a few Gyrocopters
- Siberian Base, which ends with a flamethrower
You get weapons to fight off the waves of competent and incompetent soldiers. These are dropped by special enemies, which raises the question of why they don’t use them against you. Anyway, here are the weapons you can collect:
- RPG – Four shots
- Flamethrower – Three shots
- Grenades – Three shots
Your base weapon is a knife. It is fine and has a decent enough range to take out most enemies as they run at you.
There is a time limit on the stages. This is a little strange, given how short the game is, and it is very annoying that you can’t see the time limit.
Overall, this is a fun but short arcade game. There isn’t much to the game, but Konami did a good job with it. This would have been a fun game to play as a rental back in the day.
Visuals
The game looks very good for an early NES game. The graphics took a hit when being ported to the NES. Each stage looks good, but the stage layouts are a little simplistic.
Each level is almost a straight line to the finish. There are a few platforms that let you move differently, but you can stay on the ground and be just fine. This is fine as an early NES game or a late 80s arcade game.
While you can compare it to other arcade platformers and beat’em ups from the time, it is an average game. Even on the NES, it isn’t anything special.
You can tell what each enemy does by looking at them, power-ups flash at you to draw your attention, and the landmines can easily be seen. It is a good-looking game, and it looks better than some other NES games.
Overall, the visuals are good. They aren’t that spectacular, but they get the job done. Konami’s games on the NES always looked good. In many ways, it feels like the company that sets the benchmark for other games. It is a shame that they don’t care about video games anymore.
7/10. The Gameplay and Graphics are both good, but not good enough to elevate this game. It would’ve been a nice weekend rental back in the early 90s.
Pros
- Pick-up and Play
- Decent Controls
- Good Graphics
Cons
- Short
- Pressing Up to Jump is annoying
- Limited use weapons
- No Continues
Conclusion
Rush’N Attack is a decent game I would have liked to rent in the early 90s. It is one of the many Konami games that was a solid game. They did an excellent job tailoring their arcade games to be good on the NES. Except Bayou Billy, but that is a tale for another time.
Not every game needed to be a hit, classic, or hidden gem. Sometimes you have an average game from the arcade to have a second life. The home console is also how many people would have experienced games like Rush’N Attack.