GI Joe: Wrath of Cobra

The beat’em up genre is seeing a bit of a resurgence over the last few years. Developers have been flocking back to the classic genre, reviving classic franchises and creating new ones. The Turtles are back, Streets of Rage has had a new entry, and there are even a couple of new Double Dragon variations. On the new franchise front, Maple Powered Games is grabbing a classic IP and giving it the beat’em up treatment with GI Joe: Wrath of Cobra. It’s a match made in heaven: one of the 80’s biggest cartoons meets one of its prominent gaming genres. What can go wrong? As it turns out, quite a bit, actually.

If it was all about the love shown for the IP, then this game would be an instant classic. The love is ABSOLUTELY there. You get to choose between four classic Joes from the start: Duke, Scarlett, Roadblock, and Snake Eyes. All four are true figureheads for the franchise, and on the surface, would appear to give some variety to the experience. They would appear to fit all of the typical genre tropes: Roadblock is the powerhouse, Scarlet is the finesse-based warrior, Snake Eyes is about speed, and Duke is an all-rounder. While there is some difference to their speed and range, they are all equal in terms of power. Both Scarlett and Roadblock do the same amount of damage when they hit an enemy, which doesn’t make much sense.

The damage issue can be overlooked, but aside from Snake Eyes (who has an increased attack range), the other three feel the same. They just feel like palette swaps. Thankfully, things do get a bit different when you get to the unlockable characters. For example, Gung-Ho has a different feel and attack pattern to him, which is a welcome change to the formula. However, you must put in quite a bit of work before you can unlock extra characters.

That is really sad, because they all look great. Their personalities really come out visually in the experience. The game uses a classic, sprite based visual style that truly fits the material. It looks like something you would have expected to find in the arcades during GI Joe’s heyday.

There is plenty to unlock in the game, from additional characters, different modes, level variations… it’s all there, However, the game is extremely stingy with the currency necessary to purchase the unlocks. A full play through of the game will barely net you enough to unlock one item. That means you pretty much need to play through the entire game more than 8-9 times to unlock everything, which you certainly won’t want to do.

While it may seem like I am picking on some minor, design-decision things to focus on, these are just that: the minor complaints. There are bigger issues to be had throughout the experience. Let’s start with the level design and its serious lack of variation. Every level plays out the exact same: you move left to right, and end with a boss battle. There is no variation, even though there are multiple opportunities for it. There is no verticality and no progression in any direction other than horizontally. Plus, the levels feel unnecessarily long. For the first half of the game, the levels feel like they go on forever.

There isn’t even a break between them for progressing the storyline. The story mode starts off with a great animated intro, but then you don’t see any others until close to the end of the game. I actually had one level that had an intro video, but it didn’t trigger (play) until my third replay of the level. How does that happen? These mini-cartoons would have done great to break up the experience and add some context to the game, but they’re few and far to be found.

This monotony is partially caused by the lack of enemy variation early on. It feels like you are fighting the same couple of enemy variations over and over for the first 5 or so stages. Eventually, that does change, and you get a wide variety of new enemies that all make sense in the GI Joe world, but it just takes forever to get to that point. Plus, the enemy design doesn’t always make sense. There are some vehicle-based enemies that are defeated by a single hit, from any attack. Meanwhile, a foot-based solder takes 30 or so strikes to take down. That just doesn’t make sense and it feels really odd. Thankfully, the game allows you to pick which level you start on each time you play, as long as you have beaten it previously. This helps a bit to eliminate that monotony, but it doesn’t solve everything.

The game suffers from a ton of technical problems throughout the experience. I have lost track of the amount of times my character has completely disappeared, become frozen in an odd animation loop, or just fallen off of the screen. There are also some serious hit-detection issues / combo issues. It is extremely easy to find a sweet spot on nearly every boss where you can repeatedly hit them with a light attack without interruption. They don’t know how to move away from it, and even though it takes some time, you can defeat them with one endless combo. It is just sloppy.

The one area that I must give the game some serious credit for is the music department. The soundtrack is rocking and fits the setting perfectly. Unfortunately, the sound effects aren’t of the same quality. They’re simple and redundant. Why don’t we have sound bites from the characters? It really feels lacking when compared to the efforts that have gone into the animations and imagery are so much more impressive.

Overall, GI Joe: Wrath of Cobra is a great premise with seriously flawed execution. There are a lot of times where dedication to the source material can make up for design and execution flaws, but this just isn’t one of those cases. The joy of seeing this beloved franchise come to life as a beat’em up gets quickly overshadowed by the technical issues and design flaws of the game. This could be so, so much more, but as it currently stands, it is a mediocre experience that fails to live up to the standards of the genre classics from 30 years ago.