G.I. JOE The Rise of Cobra (Wii) - Review by Chris

Introduction

G.I. Joe is the real American Hero, or so the cartoons had you believe. His catchphrase 'And knowing is half the battle' is recognised worldwide and I'm sure there are people who know it and haven't even seen the TV show. The name alone will no doubt bring back memories for those who grew up in the 80's while anyone younger probably won't get it. But G.I. Joe is being brought into the modern age and to a new audience thanks largely to a new movie based on the source material. And where there's a big movie, there's always a game to tie in with it, with EA providing this effort, although the end result doesn't exactly live up to the legacy of the name.

Gameplay

G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobras is set after the events of the movie but even with this being the case, you can still feel the influence of the movie on the story and on the action. The story goes that a terrorist organisation, known as Cobra, is stealing resources worldwide in the hope of creating a device called the MASS Device. With its potential unknown to anyone other than Cobra, the G.I. Joe crew jump into the action in the hope of thwarting Cobra's maniacal plans. It's nothing special but the story's style harks back to the days of the old cartoon. The game is essentially a third person shooter, presented in a similar vain to the likes of Gauntlet however, it can't match that game in terms of fun. G.I. Joe has ignored much of what made the cartoons so good all those years ago and instead, tries to provide a modern twist to make it more relevant to today's gamer. But the irony is that the cartoons end up being more relevant than this modern update.

As you play through the game, you'll cover various environments, taking out all kinds of enemies from the Cobra group, from standard foot soldiers to massive turrets to HISS vehicles, which represent a thankful throwback and reminder of the original material. It should be fun but it's not and quickly becomes repetitive and unimaginative. Each of the game's 20 or so levels are split into sections and each one plays out much like the previous, with only some providing a change to the gameplay, which essentially boils down to running along the linear path through the level, stopping to gun down some enemies or power generators, and continuing on through the level doing this several times. You have control over 2 characters at all times, being able to switch between them on the fly but even with a catalogue of 12 unlockable Joes to mix and match along with 4 Cobra members, the gameplay never changes beyond the run and gun setup and you'll quickly tire of it. The changes to the gameplay come in the form of being able to drive vehicles in certain sections of the levels but due both to poor camera angles and poor control, they drag the game down further rather than reignite the experience. The only other change up comes in the form of the accelerator suits, which can only be used after you kill a certain number of enemies at which point you press a button and become a super soldier capable of killing and destroying things much faster. Again, it's not as fun as it sounds but you'll have to utilise it well to beat the game.

The game itself is very lengthy as it'll take you a considerable amount of time to beat the 20 or so levels on offer. However, that time doesn't take into account the restarting of levels due to an obscene difficulty. The game has 3 difficulty settings but they are all challenging and while the game has checkpoints after each section, they don't work as such so if your team dies, you have to start the entire mission again. That is poor design right because the checkpoints are merely used to mask the loading of the game and serve no other purpose. It makes a mockery of the just about every game that has come before it and employed checkpoints properly and it's a wonder why they didn't put them in normally. This, coupled with the difficulty and the repetitive gameplay, doesn't make for an enjoyable experience even with there being a considerable amount of unlockables.

Controls

The game has been designed for use with a standard controller. As such, the classic controller is supported as well as the Wii-mote and Nunchuk. There is little use of the motion controls, thankfully, although that which is in the game, is also mapped to a button press and so they are immediately defunct from the offset. The controls as a whole work well regardless of which setup you use although the movement of characters around the levels does feel rather floaty, although this is perhaps more down to the incorporating of character models in the environments. The game makes use of fixed camera angles so you have no control over this and it does get frustrating when it comes to aiming at targets, which presents another issue in the form of toggling targets with the d-pad; an obscure and unnecessary choice.

Graphics

Most movie tie-in games go out of their way to at least try to recreate the visual offerings of the movie in high detail. This game, however, presents itself more like a title from the latter days of the N64 era. Graphics are basic, both for character models and environment. The former look decent enough from far away, but get close and you'll see how little detail they possess. It then becomes strange when you see that they have been animated particularly well. At least they managed to get something right. Environments don't present a whole lot of variety, with there only being 4 styles: arctic, jungle, desert and lava, with each of these suffering from repetitiveness in their presentation but also suffering from a lack of detail and design work to make it look as though they had been made for the Wii.

Sound

Some of the actors from the film have leant their voices for the game and they're not bad. They could have perhaps been done to a slightly higher standard but they are enough to get by on. The music from the movie also makes an appearance, as does as a remixing of the classic G.I. Joe theme music but like the voice work, they could have perhaps been delivered in a higher standard than they are. The same issues extend to the sound effects for the weapons and explosions, which are the worst of the lot in terms of quality and don't come anywhere near to feeling authentic.

Final comments

G.I. Joe has been around for a long and has many fans. Rise of the Cobra is an attempt to bring it to new fans in a more modern setting but I'd be very doubtful if this could do that. The game is so repetitive and unimaginative and the presentation values are considerably lower than they should be. It definitely feels just like a movie tie-in should yet we've seen more recently that good games can be made from movie licenses and one would have thought with the legacy that the cartoon had for its action, that this particular license could return to that form. As it is, G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobras is a pretty bad game and even if you enjoyed the film, I wouldn't recommend buying it.

Pro: Lasts a considerable amount of time, plenty of unlockables
Con: Gameplay is repetitive, presentation is poor on all fronts, nowhere near as fun as it should have been
Final score: 5.5

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