Xbox 360 Review - G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Nostalgia can be a great thing when done right and reproduced in small doses. For example, wearing a jersey of a legendary basketball, baseball or football player is a welcomed throwback. However, some things, no matter how great, should be left in the past, especially if the person drumming up the old memories doesn’t respect the original work. For children of the 80s, G.I. Joe was one thing – real. Sure, nobody died in the cartoon due to those nifty heat-dodging lasers, but children saw these animated characters as real life Real American Heroes. We forgave the censors for banning blood on TV and knew that the possibility of death was real. Even some members of my team will constantly remind me that in Larry Hama’s original Joe’s comic, Major Blood killed General Flagg.

Growing up I always wanted to see a G.I. Joe real life movie. But, eventually those dreams turned sour with rumors of Tom Cruise playing Duke and Jean-Claude Van Damme playing Snake Eyes. So, needless to say when G.I. Joe finally inked the deal to become a movie, I had my qualms. Turns out my apprehensions were correct. The movie was an abomination of the original G.I. Joe cartoon and comic. Characters lost their personalities and real life was tossed aside for fantasy based accelerator suits. G.I. Joe was now several individual versions of Tony Stark’s Iron Man.

If you’ve heard the saying that film to video game translations are bad. Well, I’m sure you can guess that cartoon to movie to video game translations are even worse. Surprisingly, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra puts that rumor to bed. This game is not only terrible, it’s a travesty and a severe blemish on games produced by EA.

Let’s take a moment to forgive the G.I. Joe video game for its sin of being a film-spawn. The game’s story actually takes place after the events in the movie. Does that help it? Not in the least bit. The game begins with an imprisoned Baroness who miraculously escapes. You must then jump aimlessly around the globe trying to prevent Cobra from creating a world destruction device. The cheese factor here may have reminiscing about the 80s cartoon, but don’t let it fool you the story is disjointed, boring, and unmotivated at best.

The gameplay of G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra is on first glance a poor rip-off of Contra. This third person shooter feels like a shoddy remnant of yesteryear in both style and mechanics. Whereas Contra was a 2D side-scrolling game, G.I. Joe is 3D all the way – and by 3D I mean 3 degrees of terrible. Jarring camera motion, lackluster vehicle movement and a bizarre Checkpoint system make this one game to avoid. Maybe Hasbro should issue a new PSA just to prevent gamers from accidentally picking up this title.

Gamers have sixteen characters to choose from, including four unlockable Cobra characters. I started off my game with Duke and Scarlett. You would think that this would be an awesome team, however, you’ll find Ripcord to actually be a better choice due to his special abilities. As you move through the game, the camera will shift in every direction but the direction you want it to go to. There is no camera control to speak of. Why the designers didn’t use the right thumbstick to control where you Look is a mystery. What’s worse is that you have no control over which enemy you’re targeting. The target system will choose off-camera power ups to fire on instead of the Cobra forces firing at you. The end result is that you’re power bar will suffer with each passing moment.

Luckily, you can dive for cover Gears of War style to avoid fire, that’s if you don’t accidentally roll which is the same button. While you dodge enemy fire, your health will be replenished. You can also switch to your teammate should things get sticky. You’re best bet however is to play with a friend. Just be warned, they may not be your friend for long after they’ve learned you suckered them into playing this game.

Attacks are either shoot or melee. None of these look great, and actually feel like 8-bit graphics. It actually felt better to toss aside my shooting attacks for hand-to-hand fighting. Alas, neither Snake Eyes nor Scarlett measured up to their martial arts training. Driving around stolen vehicles is an even worse experience. Controls are clunky and the camera movements are so jerky you’ll wish you just walked. The sounds of gunfire and vehicle movements sound like refuse from Atari 2600 gaming.

The biggest gripe I have with G.I. Joe is the use of Checkpoints. You see, they’re not really Checkpoints at all. They are literally just markers in the game to say, “Yeah you reached a certain point, and that’s it.” If you die, you don’t restart your game from that Checkpoint. Nope, that would have been too intelligent. Instead, you start from the beginning. And, trust me, after fighting against haphazard camera controls in addition to off-camera Cobra guards, you’ll feel like hanging up your control pad for a good book.

Probably the best part of the game is the one thing that is the most un-G.I. Joe. After defeating enough Cobra troops, you can press the Y-button to use your Accelerator suit. When you do this a variation of the old GI Joe theme song comes on. Hooray.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is up there on my worst games of 2009 list. So, if that’s what the design team was going for, they did a great job. Unfortunately, this is one game I cannot recommend or even remotely suggest you take a look at unless you want a lesson in bad-antiquated game design.