Go Joe! Yes the G.I’s are back and this summers big blockbuster movie has been transferred to the consoles. So, apart from bringing the gamer a sense of 80’s nostalgia ,what does G.I Joe bring to the table? To say that E.A made a great job out of the game and did the movie justice would be bending the truth a bit too far. So before we get onto what the G.I’s faults are we have to say that the core idea behind the game is good. A modern day G.I Joe is the type of thing that game developers lick their lips at, a blast from the past action hero that has already accumulated millions of fans worldwide before the games have even been released. The sad thing is that E.A hasn’t really grabbed the opportunity that they have been given. The game is a let down but is it a case of EA failure or poor material to work with ? The G.I’s are just not the same as remembered – the movie has stripped the characters of all their original charm and they have been given an all new look that just really makes them bland. But it can’t all be bad right?
Testing on the PS3 and PSP , Joe’s biggest problems are repetitiveness and blandness. The whole game is very linear. Walk through a level with your finger constantly on the trigger button shooting anything that moves. That is basically the whole game. Of course there are boss battles and some tough moments where you may have to cover (yes there is a cover system, or something that’s supposed to be a cover system) but apart from that there isn’t really much else in the game. Repetitive puzzles, blowing up generators, same old enemies, very bland levels ( snow level, jungle level, desert level, lava level etc). However the game is lengthy so at least you will be bored for a long time I suppose.
The whole game feels trapped by the movie. An example of this is the new accelerator suits from the movies. Ok so the CGI looks good on film but in the game its just well boring. You get to turn your suit on after you defeat a valid amount of enemies and this makes you then invincible and fire rockets and all sorts of flashy lights out of your arms. Each character has exactly the same suit so again very repetitive and for some reason gives them all manly voices (even the women!). And what actually really annoyed me was the music that comes on in the background. My god its annoying.
So you can play offline and online with your friends and what not but really it doesn’t make any difference to the lacklustre game play. Playing solo you can switch between characters at will and to be fair there is a very wide range of characters available (18 in total) so its not all bad, even if they all do look similar. What really confused me were the checkpoints. Now in my mind if you die or whatever you should be transported back to the checkpoint but no. On medium and hard if you die well lets just say you have to restart the level. Now I don’t know what the point is of these checkpoints are in fact I do. They are loading points for the next section of the level. I don’t know why this annoyed me so much but it just did. Maybe I just got irritable after expecting a good game and finding this instead.
Its not all bad though. As I said earlier there is a wide availability of Joes on offer to play with and each has their own weapon and special attack. Snake eyes is my personal favourite just because he has a sword really. You often find yourself playing characters that you never liked that much because they prove to be quite useful in battle as they have a better special attack than the more popular characters. There is also a tonne of concept art and character files etc that can be found throughout levels which provides some re-playability value. The characters that do not appear in the movie are, in my mind, truer to their old selves and aren’t weighed down by any baggage from the film. The whole game plays out like a week long comic strip that G.I Joe’s fans fell in love with. Cobra is once again attempting to destroy the world because they are terrorists and that’s what they do and the Joes follow them around the globe and put a stop to their plans. Yes we’ve seen it all before but it suit’s the Joes.
Overall the game really doesn’t live up to the legacy. Sadly though this is what we have learned to expect from movie licences but even so you do find yourself very disappointed in this game. It really didn’t have to follow this type of arcade style game play and the developers could have done so much more with it. Overall the graphics aren’t great, the game play is, just like G.I Joe, a blast from the past but overall the game provides you with a lot of Joe’s to play with and a lot of extras.
Sadly because the game was not up to the usual standard of EA, be it because of the material they had to work with, I have to give G.I Joe a 6 out of 10
