Genre(s) Action Developer Parker Brothers Platform Atari 2600 | Initial release date 1983 Publisher Parker Brothers | |
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Similar Parker Brothers games, Other games | ||
G i joe cobra strike for the atari 2600
G.I. Joe: Cobra Strike is the title of a video game released for the Atari 2600 in 1983. The game was developed and published by Parker Brothers and involves three different types of gameplay. The game is loosely based on the G.I. Joe franchise of the same name. The U.K. version of the game was renamed Action Man: Action Force.
Contents
Gameplay
In the single-player mode, the player controls a G.I. Joe training camp on the bottom of the screen protected by a barrier and armed with two laser cannons. In this mode the goal is to keep the giant Cobra-operated robot snake from destroying the shield and thus the training camp by hitting it eight times. The Cobra robot shoots venom and laser beams.
In two-player cooperative mode control of the G.I. Joe training game is split between two players as they work to destroy the Cobra robot. In the two-player competition mode one player controls the Cobra robot and another player controls the training camp.
Publication history
Cobra Strike was the first video game to use the G.I. Joe license.
Action Force variant
A variant of the game was released as the Action Force video game in Europe. Based on the European version of G.I. Joe known as Action Force, the game was similarly published by Parker Brothers in the PAL format for European markets. In the game, the Action Force training camp is under siege from a giant Cobra Combat Machine built by the evil Baron Ironblood. Baron Ironblood was in fact the leader of the Red Shadows in the comic book Action Force universe, not the Cobra Organization which materialized later in the series.
Reception
Jeremy Parish of Retronauts blog felt that this game "had about as much to do with G.I. Joe as any other licensed game from that era, which is to say not a whole hell of a lot", comparing it to the E.T. video game for the Atari system.
Allgame review noted that G.I. Joe: Cobra Strike is best played multi-player; the "graphics are decent" and the "sounds are only average".
Parker Brothers held a contest in which a player could win a Black Cobra Cap by reaching the 16th level of the game.