G.I. Joe: Rise Of The Cobra

17 Jun 2009 at 17:00:31 by Chris Schilling

As a game of a film of a Hasbro toy, you might reasonably expect GI Joe to be targeted at a fairly young audience. In which case, lines like “our new friends are nothing if not entrenched in symbolism” and talk of terrorist splinter cells would surely cause the odd quizzical look among the tween market. But when said movie has been described by its star (current hunk-for-hire Channing Tatum) as “a cross between X-Men, Transformers and Mission: Impossible”, perhaps Joe is skewing a little older these days. Mind you, it perhaps says something about our knowledge of the product that we thought GI Joe was a single person rather than a military unit. Well, it makes more sense to us than referring to female agent Shana O’Hara (bet you can’t guess her codename, readers) as ‘Joe’.

Though a bit of research brought us a little more up to speed on the franchise’s recent history, the story still remains a little impenetrable to non-fans. Initially it involves the mysterious and deadly Baroness, who had previously infiltrated and corrupted the Military Arms Research Syndicate (or MARS, for you acronym fans), with her capture spearheading a mission to bring the remaining criminals to justice. Naturally, she doesn’t stay imprisoned for long, as a host of teleporting soldiers arrive and spirit her away along with her guard, Joe team member Heavy Duty. The remaining members of the team are then sent to rescue him while simultaneously investigating links between this cell and long-time Big Bad, Cobra.

Thus begins a top-down action-adventure vaguely reminiscent of Sega arcade non-classic Alien Syndrome, as you blast your way through legions of generic enemy soldiers, pausing only to be interrupted by instructions from badly-digitised models of the film’s characters. Perhaps we’re being a little harsh on the presentation when there’s two months to go till the game’s release, but for our preview code we’re stuck with a constipated-looking Dennis Quaid and a baffled Said Taghmaoui, the latter doing his Chloe-from-24 bit of hacking mainframes, normally telling you he can’t decrypt things just yet so you’ll have to fend off respawning baddies for a bit.

Controls are pretty straightforward: the d-pad guides your selected character, while B fires his or her normal weapon, ranging from a bowgun for Scarlett (told you) to a machine gun for Heavy Duty. You have infinite ammo for each of these, but need to be mindful of reload times. In these cases, you can tap L or simply wait for the auto-reload. Y is for the more powerful secondary weapons, which require recharging between shots – these are chiefly grenades or other such explosives, mainly used for large groups of grunts, turrets, enemy vehicles or other obstacles. X is for the rarely-needed melée attacks, while A is the much handier dodge-roll. The R button is used for special abilities – collect enough Action Tokens (represented here seemingly by crumpled pieces of tinfoil) and you can temporarily unleash devastating powers, or benefit from a short-lived spell of invulnerability.

Killing enemies also earns you Battle Points, which are spent on an RPG-like levelling system. Don’t expect anything too deep – you’ll merely be given stronger weapons and a new outfit (or the same one in a different colour, rather) but it’s nice to be able to grind a little for upgrades if you’re feeling underpowered. The option to choose from different characters is also a boon, as some are more suited to particular situations. We tended to stick with ellipsis-loving mute ninja Snake Eyes, whose sword attacks are the only specials which don’t have any cool-down time – though came unstuck when facing off against turret guns. Meanwhile, nominal hero Duke is your archetypal all-rounder; Scarlett is nimble but a little weak for our liking; Heavy Duty is slow but powerful; Ripcord is another solid choice with a great special; Shipwreck...well, he has a parrot. You have plenty of lives, and the action continues from where you left off, regardless of character choice - meaning boss battles are less attritional, with energy bars still depleted when you rejoin the action. So while it’s surprisingly tricky at times, you’re constantly making some kind of progress.

Presentation is lacking a little lustre at present, though with this being an EA production, we wouldn’t bet against a bit ofspit-and-polish being applied in the last few weeks of development. Music is suitably bombastic, though at times it seems caught in a brief but endless loop, while the graphics aren’t really anything to write home about, with bland environments and interchangeable enemies. At least the destruction looks good, with larger explosions shaking the screen and plenty going on at any one time without any noticeable impact on gameplay. A decent-sized campaign is bolstered by the addition of several multiplayer variations, with Capture the Flag and Team Battle modes among others offering the opportunity to play as one of five Cobra characters. 

Though objectives are uninspired and progress resolutely linear, GI Joe certainly had something which kept us playing. Its core gameplay is competent enough, even if incorporating a cover system of sorts - you automatically crouch when behind a barrier – seems like an exercise in futility in a top-down shooter. Its difficulty seems well-tuned, too – while the occasional vehicle drop allows you to wreak some enjoyably explosive havoc. Hopefully its presentational wrinkles can be ironed out before release – if so, and the film turns out okay, then this solid if unspectacular tie-in could swell the coffers of its publishers still further.

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