Get the game walkthrough guide for: G.I. JOE RISE OF THE COBRA for the PC PS3 Wii and XBOX 360.
In its very 80s in vibe, recalling a third-person Contra (or, depending on your locale, Gryzor or Probotector) as characters run around, unleashing non-violent death with flashy stars flying everywhere. "When I was growing up, especially when I was playing with the Joe figures, I was playing games like Contra, like Smash TV," says Pavlich when I mention this.
"We actually have a nod to Contra. On the very first level of Contra, you end up against that wall - that boss wall. But the first arctic mission you play in the game facing a very similar wall - kind of a remake of that idea."
There are also multiple characters. There are twelve in the game, each with their own unique primary and secondary attacks, divided into three rough archetypes - Commandos, Heavies and Combat Soldiers, who are melee specialists, ranged specialists and hybrid classes respectively. They feed into teamwork-focused design, like a damage bonus for concentrating attacks and juggling enemies between you, and a boss character with a weak point at the rear that is best exposed by one player creating a distraction. Even the shared-screen camera option - as opposed to a split-screen one - is trying to enhance the co-operative feeling. "Dividing the screen makes you feel as if you're off doing your own thing, not working as a team," says Pavlich. "We wanted to reinforce the idea they were working through the game together rather than being locked in on their own."
You don't start with all twelve characters, however; you open them up via the battlepoint economy system. It's another system to reward serious play, offering points for mission success, and accepting them in exchange for character unlocks, new missions, video, and other assorted content. In a nod to the toys that have character information on the back of each box, there are also character bios left around the level to introduce new stuff and offer hints on how to deal with whatever big nasty thing Cobra - the game's terrorist organisation - is going to throw at you next.
There are also some secret rooms and limited multi-pathing in the game, with different character types allowing you to unlock different doors (ala LEGO Star Wars). Thankfully, there are areas in each map where you can swap out the character you're controlling - if only to bring in a new one you've just unlocked. EA is talking about a small strategic element of choosing the right characters for each level, and you'll have to hope so, because if that doesn't happen, everyone's just going to pick the ever-popular mute ninja Snake Eyes. Walkthroughs Walkthru Strategy Guide for GI Joe Rise of the Cobra
"One of the great things about being more than the movie, not only will you see vehicles in the game which are straight out of the movie, but we're able to bring in vehicles which are only in the toy line," says Pavlich. "In fact, we have some vehicles which are from the 'classic' toy line which aren't being revisited in the new toyline. We're really weaving all that together. The classic Cobra vehicle is the Hiss tank - it isn't going to be in the film at all. If we were the traditional movie game, it'd be such a missed opportunity not to have that, because fans would be, 'But that's the classic thing!' We really wanted to cover all the different bases." So no Hissy fits, yes? There's also the Accelerator Suit, which is a major device in the film, allowing you to perform superhuman acts of soldiering. As the developer tongue-in-cheekly puts it, it's basically the game's equivalent of a Mario power-up, but Mario doesn't get wrist-rockets. More's the pity. Walkthroughs Walkthru Strategy Guide for GI Joe Rise of the Cobra
Not having had a chance to play it, my main reservation from seeing GI Joe in action is the camera, which looks a bit confused when it gets up-close behind the players, although it appears to work fine when you're advancing on the enemies - even adding a sense of epic scale to the proceedings. One reason LEGO Star Wars' shared camera worked was because characters are primarily based on close-combat weapons, like lightsabers. When it's primarily guns instead, you suspect aiming off-camera will be somewhat tricky. So while clearly designed for two people sitting on a sofa and talking nonsense at one another, it does make you wonder whether they're considering any form of online-co-op.
And they are. Well, considering it, anyway. "A lot of movie games, the development cycle is 6-8 months," says Pavlich. "By the time this comes out, it'll be nearer 18 months of development. We wanted to make sure the same-screen co-op with a buddy was perfected. If it wasn't working well, everything else fails. We still have time in the schedule to evaluate what we could do with online, to see if it's something that we could get done for some of the platforms. It's something we're looking at." G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra Walkthrough for PS3 & XBOX 360
When the action commences without the duck and hide mechanics getting in the way, which if you remember Gears, it's not all that important to actually STICK yourself to stuff to hide correctly anyway, their isn't much need to basic action is pretty much the norm for this type of game.Well done in by what I'm saying is the areas and missions are descent.The boss fighting is pretty darn cool in my opinion and if anything saves this game from total disaster.
Each character has a standard melee and ranged attack, and a few are actually pretty darn cool.Reminds me of how much one would try to figure out the final combo on Mortal Kombat games to get the "Total Whateverism" to come up.Just a good hint to know about the Joe's that are useful, I'd like to point out that Ripcord for example has a turret-manifesting mode that will tear apart most enemies and the smaller boss types.If you ever decide to go with the storymode make sure to use Gung-Ho.The friendly AI system does almost no damage to your teammate no matter which ones you use, but Gung-Ho will fire missiles that can topple over the baddies making them more removable.
Now in multiplayer mode, your teammate won't really take cover in useful ways but it still isn't a big deal since he can't die.The deal tho would be to have another person on your side in co-op mode to maneuver strategically at your enemy and make yourself and your location overall less obvious.That and make sure to stick close to your counterpart or the camera will just go wonky making you unable to play the level till you get respawned.
The best part in G.I. Joe Rise of the Cobra is utilizing the accelerator suits.If you've seen the movie (or trailer at the time of this writing) you know there is something very CG style but cool about those moves they are making, and well, it absolutely rings true in the gameplay version as well.Once you hit the accelerator suit mode activation it makes you both invincible and your moves are supersonic as lightening allowing you to do loads of destruction in very little time.Be careful though since the same button that is used to open doors and activate computers is the double punch to activate this mode and you might wind up using it up when you didn't mean to.However, when utilized correctly you most definitely will enjoy the features this suit provides.Including the very cool G.I. Joe music that is incorporated within the powerup scenario.
The very original and well known score or theme music is truly an aspect of the game that gets the G.I Joe feeling right for me and it's too bad that the rest of the sound design wasn't made in similar fashion.Overall the original music score is well done; the sound effects, work well for the most part.But the tinker sounds from the weapons sometimes gets a bit overbearing.Also I think I should add that some of the other very standard sound effects don't sound right at all.Like when you break open a box it sounds like sandpaper rather than actual foley made recordings why did they skip out on this obviously important set of time to polish the game?Well the rush to get it on the shelf of course.Or maybe they were really going for an 80's feel to some of the game to give homage to the original series which had just about as corny sound effects in the cartoon.J
Overall G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a bit of a disappointment.Further issues I'd have to put on a wish/patch list would be why midlevel checkpoints update your score but don't actually save your game.This is stupid since if both of your chars die, you have torestart the entire level anyway.If borrowing ingredients from Gears of War, why only utilize the portion of the engine that gives the mission updates?Why not use more of what worked?I think the design team had a few meetings about how to avoid too much 'borrowing' and to really do their best making an original engine that would blow everyone away.But on such a short time schedule, a production of this magnitude really bit them backwards.The game isn't all that bad, like I said, there is some really enjoyable features and overall the lock on target mode makes things easier to handle if it works in your favour.Still, there's not enough here for me to recommend a full purchase unless of course you are a JOE fan, and then of course, it's a MUST HAVE!
I leave GI Joe behind with mixed impressions. I do admire what EA's trying to do, and working on this preview brought to mind Smash TV, LEGO Star Wars and even the divine idiot that is Earth Defence Force 2017. It makes me feel more excited than I actually am. The thing that links those games together is that I'd only ever truly rave about them after I've played them. In these things, it almost doesn't matter if the theory is strong or not; you can only even slightly tell when you play the thing. So until we get a chance to take GI Joe out of its plastic wrapper, crouch on the Eurogamer carpet and play with Duke, Scarlet and all the rest, I'm going to avoid anything like predictions. Good luck, EA, and soldier on.
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Posted by on September 27, 2009