G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero

North American arcade flyer.

***G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero***, more commonly known simply as ***G.I. Joe***, is a third-person rail shooter video game produced by Konami and released in 1992 for video arcades. It is based on the animated series of the same name by DiC Enterprises that aired in the late 1980s and stars four characters from the show: Duke, Snake-Eyes, Scarlett and Roadblock.

No console port of this game was ever produced.

## Plot

*Cobra Army finishes up the heavy bomber and attacks the big cities.*
*Then Cobra spreads mass destruction and chaos.*
*Cobra Commander declares "At last, we completely rule the world!"*
*G.I. Joe is ordered to advance and to stop Cobra's sinister plan.*
Konami's *G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero* arcade game was released as a tie-in to the late 1980s animated series of the same name by DiC Enterprises (a continuation of the original Sunbow Entertainment series).

Its plot isn't specifically based on any story arc from the TV show or the comics and instead uses a more generic approach, where Cobra is utilizing their usual terrorist tactics to carry on a massive campaign to conquer the world. For this end, it makes use of a newly developed flying battleship to deploy its troops and attack the world's major cities by surprise.

The American G.I. Joe military task force is sent to stop Cobra at all costs. Their first objective is to neutralize a heavy bomber the terrorist group is using to attack the cities, commandeered by their intelligence officer, the Baroness. After this initial defeat, Cobra threatens to launch a missile attack all over the world and the Joe Team must then make haste in finding out the location of their secret hideout to stop their evil plan, which they successfully achieve by uncovering their base in the middle of a vast jungle. They infiltrate the base and travel through a long complex of underground caverns, doing battle along the way with Cobra's weapons manufacturer and second-in-command, Destro. This path eventually leads them to Cobra's ultimate weapon, a gigantic battleship that boasts missile-launching capabilities.

The battleship emerges from its aquatic hideout and goes airborne, trying both to commence its missile attack and also to escape the Joe Team. Nevertheless, the Joes catch up to it on one of their flying vehicles, deploying their agents on the cruiser's deck.

The Joe Team make their way across the cruiser's extensive landing track and reach the main control room, where they finally do battle with the headmaster of the terrorist organization, the Cobra Commander himself!

After a hard and arduous battle, the Joes finally subdue the evil terrorist leader and destroy the cruiser's power core, making the ship to explode and sending it plummeting to the ground below, securing with this world peace once again.

## Gameplay

*G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero* is a pseudo-3D rail shooter in third person view where the player takes the role of one of four heroic members of the G.I. Joe military task force to put an end to Cobra's world domination plans. Being a rail shooter, the game automatically scrolls forward toward the background in a straightforward plane. The player character, enemies and other environmental objects are all done using 2D sprites which scale accordingly as the camera approaches to give the effect of proximity. The game is notorious for the vast amount of destructible objects featured in the levels, most of which that crumble or disappear in fancy explosions as they sustain damage. Some of these environmental objects may hinder the player's path and must be destroyed in order to clear the way; if the player character bumps into any of these as they're moving along, they'll sustain damage (this also applies to enemies; making physical contact with any enemy or vehicle will result in sustaining damage as well).

Destroying certain objects or enemies will reveal power-up items, which the player picks up by either shooting or moving into them before scrolling past them.

Depending on the cabinet, the game can be set up for up to two or four players. Players can join-in at any time during gameplay. The playable roster consists of Duke, Snake-Eyes, Scarlett and Roadblock. All four commandos control identically and have the same attack power, abilities and hitbox size, none having a benefit over the others. Other Joe members appear throughout the course of the game as well in non-playable cameos, such as Hawk, Scoop and Storm Shadow.

Gameplay and visual style reminds to other games of this genre, such as *Cabal*, *Devastators* or *Rambo III*. The controls consist of a joystick and two attack buttons. The joystick moves the player's aiming reticle in any of the eight directions, while also moving their character left or right at the bottom of the screen. One of the attack buttons fires the character's rifle, which has unlimited ammunition, while the other is for firing their rocket launcher, which does far greater damage, being able to defeat many enemies at once and destroy environmental objects or vehicles with a single shot, but which has a finite stock. The player must destroy any Cobra soldier or vehicle that stands in their way, occasionally stopping by for the mandatory boss battles, which come in the form of the franchise's many iconic villains and which usually take command of a heavy armed and armored vehicle or battle station to do battle with the player.

The player has a health gauge which is depleted as the player gets hit by enemy attacks, losing a life if it reaches zero. When the player runs out of lives, they must insert another credit before the counter expires in order to continue. Continues in this game are unlimited.

The game consists of a total of eight stages set across three missions. Once all levels have been completed, the game starts on its next loop on a higher difficulty setting.

### Power-ups

* **Rapid fire** - Upgrades the player's rifle with auto-fire. The effect is lost whenever the player character sustains damage.
* **Missile** - Increases the player's missile stock by one unit. Up to nine missiles can be carried by the player character.
* **Health kit** - Replenishes the player character's life bar.

### Stages

Mission 1
* Chemical Plant
* Air Base
* Cobra's Weapons Plant

Mission 2
* Jungle
* Cavern Base

The Final Battle
* Battleship

## Gallery

### Promotional artwork

North American arcade flyer
(front)North American arcade flyer
(back)Japanese arcade flyer
(front)Japanese arcade flyer
(back)
## Trivia

* The first stage of the game features the music theme of DiC's *G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero* animated series as background music.
* Even though Snake-Eyes is traditionally characterized as mute, he yells "Yo Joe!" when the game begins and when he starts a new life. He also has a death cry when defeated.
* The second title screen is a homage to the cover of *G.I. Joe* #109: "Death in the Desert".

Second title screen.*G.I. Joe* #109
"Death in the Desert"

## External links

* *G.I. Joe* (Konami) at Joepedia
* GameFAQs
* MobyGames