Review for GI Joe: Operation Blackout. Game for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 13/10/2020
"In the threatening jungle, there's a danger lurking, it's a mysterious gang, it's the Cobras! Look out Joe!"
If you have read the sentence above humming you are also veterans from a childhood between the 80s and 90s and you can skip to the technical conclusions, since you know exactly what it is about GI Joe: Operation Blackout, Third Person Shooter developed by IguanaBee and published by Maximum Games. Otherwise, make yourself comfortable and get ready for a journey through tamarro patriotism made in the USA
Meanwhile, who are the G.I. Joe? They are a super specialized team of the American armed forces, with specific operators from the most disparate bodies: marines (and God forbid!), Green caps, infiltrators, pilots, ninjas. Wait a minute… ninja ?? Exact! Why i G.I. Joe - which embody as you may have understood the spirit of the Fourth of July - are (textual quote) “The Real American Heroes”, so very cool and let's face it what's cooler than a ninja with stars and stripes slicing bad guys? Here you have understood the general register of this franchise. But you haven't seen it all yet!
In fact, the GI Joes fight against the evil terrorist group Cobra, equipped with a real private army, complete with a navy, air force and its own space program (!). Like our American heroes, the evil antagonists are a collection of specialists of various kinds, only that together with the inevitable evil ninja, we find a lot of scum with a strong "beyond the curtain" aftertaste - just because the cold war was still more than current - led by someone who wants to do the cheap cosplay of Darth Vader, by a Russian with a metal bald head and by the disturbing Baroness, a character who stirred the sleep of the kids of the time (and who continued to do so once they became adults after she was played by Sienna Miller in the 2009 film).
All this trash makes sense, if we contextualize it to the times in which the title came out and to the fact that it was a line of toys made to intercept the commando exaltation of the children of the time. Towards the line of toys, a series of cartoons with absurd plots and a final moralist pistolotto, in pure Masters of the Universe style, has inevitably turned up. GI Joe: Operation Blackout is proposed, according to the developers, as a sort of cross between Gears of War e Fortnite (!!), embellished by the 80s action trash atmosphere described above. On paper a must have for all lovers of the period and vintage series. In reality, a practically total collapse!
Let's start from the graphic sector: at first glance it might seem like a nice cell shading, which gives the whole a very cartoonish aspect, which would also be there. Unfortunately, however, going just beyond the opening scenes, we find ourselves in front of a chilling graphics, with polygons often cut with a knife and "minimal" animations, to say the least). Something like that, which wouldn't even stand out PlayStation 2 (stuff like Okami if he eats it alive), on a game for PlayStation 4, Xbox One e Nintendo Switch barely a month after the launch of a new generation of consoles is unacceptable.
In addition to this, GI Joe: Operation Blackout he also has controls that to define inaccurate is to pay him a compliment. During our test we constantly had problems with the sensitivity of the aim, even recalibrating it as much as possible. A disaster. Even with the auto-lock option turned on, which only works when aiming, things don't improve at all.
GI Joe: Operation Blackout consists of a single player campaign with a negligible story and which, if put on record, has nothing to do with that of Gears of War, a local co-op mode, with split screen and a competitive multiplayer (team and not) in various ways. Which, however, is only playable locally. Nothing online. Yes, you read that correctly. Or connect four or more controllers to your console or nisba. The only, and we repeat the only, merit of GI Joe: Operation Blackout is that there are practically all the bizarre characters of the series and a lot of nice customizations for the aforementioned. That's all? Unfortunately.
In conclusion, GI Joe: Operation Blackout is more than a wasted opportunity. Without thinking of approaching it in the least to Fortnite or Gears of War as in the words of the developers, a nice title could come out, of great interest for the many nostalgics of those years. The atmosphere is all there (and it is the only thing that mercifully raises) the final vote, but otherwise we are not there. Too bad indeed.
► GI Joe: Operation Blackout is an Adventure type game developed by IguanaBee Fair Play Labs and published by Maximum Games GameMill Entertainment for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 13/10/2020
