G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Reviewed by Jason Venter (August 15, 2009)

Instead of copying something like Halo or even a third-person shooter along the lines of Gears of War, two options that surely must have been appealing and may have led to something interesting, the developers went a different route. The result is a shooter viewed primarily from far overhead. Its not-quite-isometric viewpoint allows for expansive environments, large battles and lots of run 'n gun action, a bit like classic Contra if it were turned 90 degrees.

Reviewed by Jason Venter (August 12, 2009)

Finishing a mission on "Casual" level won't award you as many tokens as the more challenging choices and effectively prevents you from ever recruiting a full team of mercenaries. That's disappointing since one of the game's coolest features is the ability to recruit four special Cobra characters. You'll either need to man up and repeat stages on the higher difficulty setting (or do so right from the start), or you'll need to play through the whole adventure as Duke and Scarlet so that you have points left once the coolest characters become available.