G.I. Joe

Rating: T

Score: 4.0/10

Loosely based on the movie, G.I. Joe would immediately fall in the “movie-to-game adaptation” kind of game. We all know how those usually go! The movie was great with lots of explosions and fight scenes, which sounds like a should translate into a good Action game. Too bad there are so many flaws you’d never be able to see the decent gameplay underneath. This game is available for the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, and PC.

The core gameplay is a simple, third-person, cover-and-shoot kind of game, like another game I could name that’s a lot more famous, and a lot better engineered. You pick two people at the start of a mission, and they can be designated either Cobras (the bad guys) or G.I. Joes (the good guys), or both. There are three classes: Commando, Solider, and Heavy Weapons. Commandos are good for close range, Heavy Weapons for long range, and Soldier is a mix of the two (like another famous, great game I know of, with team-based combat and different classes). I would’ve thought it would’ve been the other way around, Heavy Weapons for close range, Commandos for long range. Who knew Miniguns were so accurate, even more accurate than a burst-shot assault rifle with a grip?

Along with shooting, they have a melee attack that can charge up. Once fully charged, you can knock your opponent in the air and fire a barrage of bullets into his airborne body. This is a fun strategy until you encounter ninjas. They have the best melee weapon, a Katana, which will do huge damage at close range. You can be a ninja (Snake Eyes or Storm Shadow) yourself, but it’s too hard to get within range of your Katana while avoiding his weapon.

Although melee fighting a ninja is hard, that’s the only thing hard in this game. The game is fairly easy, especially once you get “Heavy Duty”. Heavy Duty is a black “Heavy Weapons” class wielding a minigun with the best “special” in the game. What is a “special”? Specials are special abilities each character has, simply put. Why is Heavy Duty’s special so great? His special doubles (or maybe even triples) the damage he does. That, along with the fact he has the most accurate minigun ever, means he can clear a wave of enemies by running out in the open and simply using his special. Don’t worry about ammo, all guns have endless clips!

Heavy Duty makes the game a cakewalk for a character you get so early in the game. He even takes down tanks in a few seconds. Seriously, I’m not making that up. Foot soldiers, tanks, ninjas, super-humans, nothing stands in his way...for long.

Another way the game designers made the games nice and easy is with the access to G.I. Joe’s Accelerator Armor. If you saw the movie, you should know what that is. If not, it’s a super-suit that makes the wearer stronger, faster, and invulnerable to damage. All you have to do is continuously kill people and you get the chance to...kill some more people, but faster next time.

There are tons of secrets to collect, but they only collect you points you can use to buy other characters. Once you have Heavy Duty, there’s no need for any other characters;, he can solo the game from there.

It being two people fighting at once, there’s obvious Co-Op, right? For course, if there were no Co-Op, something would be seriously wrong. Not that it’s a great game with a friend; you’ll just be fighting for the higher score as you breeze through levels.

Guess what makes an appearance! Bad camera angles, of course. Bad camera angles have plagued games since the dawn of 3-D games, and are usually a sign the game designers were rushed to meet the deadline or just simply had no idea what they were doing. “Hidden” objects are mostly hidden because the camera wants to follow you from a mile behind, and occasionally gets stuck on random rocks and trees. Not to mention it becomes hard to see the enemies when you’re the size of an ant to begin with.

Despite its inconsistencies and flaws, it’s not the worst game ever. The gameplay is solid, yet extremely easy. The Co-Op is fun, but makes the game again way easier. Bad camera angles only makes it worse than it already is. Now you know how mediocre this game is, and knowing is half the battle!