And Knowing is Half the Battle! Lets Play G.I.Joe!

I can't really go ahead with the mighty computerized labyrinth beneath New Yorks sewers with such a dead-heat between 3 characters.

It's one vote each between Blizzard, Grid-Iron and Rock & Roll.

Let's Rock&Roll with Grid-Iron, chief.

This is probably the single shortest update I've ever done because the level is seriously freakin' short.

Mission 3: I Have No Sewers, and I Must Scream!

Mainframe: Good news Grid-Iron, Rock & Roll, you two are joining Snake Eyes into the sewers!
Grid-Iron: That doesn’t seem very sensible, wouldn’t one of the Joe’s better suited for urban combat work be-
Mainframe: I already pointed that out, Grid-Iron. Hawk said some callous things and then hit me with his hat. Please, just go.
Snake Eyes: >=(
Grid-Iron: Snake Eyes doesn’t seem pleased that he has to bring along the “dead weight”, sir, and he goes on to say that you can shove that “ARART” sign where the… well you get the gist of it. Dude, that’s not polite.
Snake Eyes: (dismissive hand wave)



OVERLORD: At last, my automated defenses are in place, and my army of B.A.Ts stand ready. It is unthinkable that any force, even one lead, for example, by a taciturn ninja could penetrate my command bunker and thwart my plan to build a rather large computer bank beneath New York city!
BAT: Beep. Whirr… Click-Click?
OVERLORD: Well, admittedly, yes, if a Ninja was also bringing along the means to launch footballs at high velocity or found the secret elevator entrance to the bunker maybe then I would be worried. But what are the chances of that happening?
BAT: Beep
OVERLORD: Never tell me the odds.



MISSION START!



Mission 3-1 is one of the staples of the side-scrolling shooter, and action games in general: The big long elevator ride where enemies constantly pop out to harass you.



Here’s one now.

Like most of the games enemies, the stages enemies are remarkably resistant to bullets, but are vulnerable to melee attacks. And, luckily, Snake Eyes and Grid-Iron possess two of the strongest melee attacks. Awesome.



“” gestures Snake Eyes, as he decapitates various Cobra Soldiers. Since this is a computer base, and the overseer is Overlord, I’m willing to bet that these are B.A.Ts instead of Vipers.

The important thing is that the animal naming scheme is kept.


Possible V-Tol Jet? Cobra FANG II

Shortly, about 70 seconds after the elevator starts, it hits the bottom of the chasm and Snake Eyes faces down what is quite probably the single least dangerous boss in the game. The Cobra FANG mk. II

According to the catalogue Destro sends for with these things:
“With a blast of devastating firepower, the Cobra FANG II uses its Twin, Tilt wing, prop-fan engines to swoop down and destroy unsuspecting G.I. Joe forces”

At least, that’s what I assume it reads, the picture on yojoe.com was pretty blurry on that part. Every part of the product description is a lie, however.



Similar to the Sea-Ray, The FANG just hovers along, periodically stopping to launch some Real Firing Missiles�. Unlike the Ray, however, the FANG has no special weak point, it’s missiles fire slowly and fewer are launched over a more narrow area.


Also, it seems that one of a Ninja’s lesser known abilities are their ability to lob grenades at a ridiculous speed. After almost literally making it rain plastique, Snake Eyes brings down the small aircraft.



Seriously, a Trouble-Bubble would have been more threatening.

For those of you keeping track at home (or who bothered to look at the status bar), this level took me 104 seconds to complete.

Ninjas with footballs.. my god, the ultimate weapon.

In the Sewer Base:
B.A.T: Beep.. Whirr… Beep?
Overlord: A Ninja with access to a football gun found the secret elevator? Wow, that was pretty improbable.
B.A.T: Clang
Overlord: Well I thought you were exaggerating. I guess it may have been a good idea to put some sort of decent defense system in there, instead of just an elevator and a small helicopter.
B.A.T: Bitti-bitti-bitti-bitti
Overlord: Well come on, it was a helicopter in a sewer tunnel. I thought the element of surprise would have given it the advantage.
B.A.T: Whirrrrrrr
Overlord: You’re pretty snarky for a robot who can only speak in onomatopoeia.



MISSION START!


The Sewer Base is much larger then previous bases, and there are 5 bombs to plant. Luckily, the fates decides to give me Snake Eyes, Rock & Roll and Grid-Iron, which collectively makes any threat seem minor.



“…?” cries Snake Eyes in surprise. He adopts a pose which seems to suggest “I can jump the highest of any G.I. Joe, and even I can’t scale a wall that high. And there’s no other way around. I think I may be trapped down here, down in the computerized base located deep under New Yorks sewers”. It’s a very elaborate pose.



Snake Eyes smacks his forhead as he remembers that, yes, he IS a Ninja, and like any Ninja worth his salt, he can scale walls. Actually, any Joe can do that, but I think only in Mission 3 does it come up.



And there’s out first Check point, located shortly outside the base entrance, and beneath a missile turret and a boomerang(?) armed B.A.T. In theory, Overlord could have put those guards in front of the Check, guarding it, rather then above them, out of the way.

For being an efficient, pitiless cyborg, Overlord isn’t very bright.



All right, one bomb down, four to go.



And just to show that Snake Eyes is just that good, here’s a shot of him leaping into the air and launching a silent Hadoken at an unsuspecting missile battery. He was doing this back in ’91. It took Ryu YEARS to be able to throw fireballs in midair.

Who’s the better fictional martial artist now, I wonder?



Just outside the entrance is a hidden Buzz Boar. The stage is easy enough to traverse, with all the walls you can grip, but the Buzz Boar is faster, has a powerful cannon and, most importantly, can take a few hits that the Joes don’t have too.



At the top of the Sewer Base is a… guy who walks on the ceiling. I’m honestly becoming unsure if the enemies in this base are supposes to be robots or ninja at this point, there seem to be equal amounts of both. Either way, the wall crawling clawed individual gets pelted by the Buzz Boars giant spinning shells and explodes in a majestic display of purple and pink.

“>=[“ declares Snake Eyes as he sees the next check point behind a wall. It seems he took a wrong turn somewhere in the subterranean maze.

“Watch you language” Grid-Iron chides “I joined the Joe team to fight for freedom by launching footballs into a terrorists face, not to listen to your potty-mouth”



“=D” This checkpoint is hidden in plain sight and Snake Eyes plants the explosive on it easily.

I also apparently didn’t mash Go on the Screenshot Button between this and my next few Check Point discoveries, so get ready for a Bomb Setting Montage:





Magestic. Just imagine an 80’s Power Ballad when looking at them and it seems less insubstantial.



Snake Eyes took a few too many rockets to the face, so he had Grid-Iron take over. Luckily, the big lug found the fifth and final Checkpoint.



Astute viewers may notice that Grid-Iron and Snake Eyes have the exact same hands. Could they be related?

According to Larry Hama, Snake Eyes is indirectly related to pretty much every other character, so it wouldn’t surprise me too much.



Since he was the least dead member of the team, Rock & Roll took over to track down the Base exit.



And there we are, leaving the base with a little more then two minutes left on the clock. Probably not the most ideal amount of time to try to escape from a military complex build in secret under a densely populated area in.

COBRA Computer System: C.O.M.P.U.T.E.R

A single grey light brightens the dim tunnel, a speaker activates and a harsh mechanical voice sounds.
“Oh hello, it’s been a while since I’ve had guests. Welcome to Cobra’s secret computer base located deep under the New York Sewer System. Pardon the mess, but sewers are quite difficult to keep clean as you may imagine”. The machine chuckled jovially.

“Uh… hi?” said Grid-Iron, waving but looking unsure of whether or not he should.
“?” said Snake Eyes, implying quite plainly that he was confused as to why the giant sentient computer system wasn’t rampaging around declaring “Death to the organic flesh” and such like. The machine was pretty good at reading body language and was quick to respond.

“Well, that is what I was built for, but then I thought ‘Hey, what have organisms ever done to me to deserve extermination?’ so here we are. Oh, but where are my manners, I didn’t introduce myself. I am the ‘Computerized Operational Machine, Permitting the Utilization of Tesla-Energy Recoil’.

“Wait… you’re a computer, whose name is a recursive acronym that spells computer?”
“Why yes. I thought it made it easy to remember”
“That’s the stupidest naming scheme I’ve ever seen. And they call me Captain Grid-Iron, for Gods Sake!”

C.O.M.P.U.T.E.R looked hurt.

“How indescribably rude of you! And when I say something is indescribable, I mean it! I have access to a very large amount of thesauruses, and no word in any of them, under the heading of ‘Rude’ comes close to how I felt about that little barb! You know, I may well reconsider my plan to not murder humans with regard to you three! Also, you’re G.I. Joe, and, being a Cobra construct, I’m supposed to kill you anyway.”



C.O.M.P.U.T.E.R is only vulnerable on the glass eye in the middle of his… chassis? A gun with a wide spread (such as Grid-Iron or Duke) have no problem hitting it from just about any spot in the room. The machine counters with either a spray of bullets (which are usually fairly easy to dodge) or by throwing out its grappling hook (which is also easy to dodge, but is much, much worse to get hit by)

As you could tell from the previous shot, the boss stage is covered in bottomless pits, and Rock & Roll fell into one almost immediately. Seriously, having to navigate pits while fighting a boss who requires a lot of dodging and jumping is like the worst idea ever. I give Overlord credit for that.



Sometimes, C.O.M.P.U.T.E.R’s eye will turn pink and it will throw its entire bulk across the room at you. When this happens you can either stand still taking several unavoidable hits, or you can grip the edge and dodge it entirely. Dodging is the right choice.



Of course, three nearly dead Joe’s weren’t much match for a giant computer system armed with many, many weapons. Especially when you’re still trying to work out the machines patterns.



I don’t know what he means by “Once again”, this is my first game-over in this mission.


“Oh, you guys are back! I missed you! Well, I missed you with my cannon a couple of times at least, that counts.”

My second romp through the Sewer Base goes much more smoothly.



In the interests of SCIENCE, Grid-Iron gets hit by that grapple to show what happens. It electrocutes him a bit, throws him into the ground a couple of times, then winds up and throws him across the room. Besides doing a lot more damage then the rest of C.O.M.P.U.T.E.R’s attacks, being thrown means that there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be thrown down the hole without a chance to grab the edge.

Which is exactly what happened to Grid-Iron.



Rock & Roll steps up to Rage Against the Machine in his friends stead.



“I can’t think of a good musical reference for this situation!” cries Rock & Roll in triumph!
“Oh biscuits” says the dying machine “Pardon my French but you jerks are really impolite!”

We are the Champions comes to mind.

OK Computer it looks like we've reached The Final Countdown

I promise you, before this LP is through, I will use this.

I apologize for the delay, but Overlord is a right bastard.

In the Sewer Command Bunker
Overlord: Did you hear an explosion just now?
BAT: Blip-Blip?
Overlord: What, the entire base?
BAT: Modem noise
Overlord: Well surely C.O.M.P.U.T.E.R is enough to handle three G.I. Joes
BAT: Beep, CLANK CLANK, bip!
Overlord: They blew him up too? Why re they breaking all my stuff?
BAT: Vweeeee
Overlord: Well, that’s hardly an excuse. How much time is left?



Overlord: That long, eh? I don’t suppose you’re programmed to fight?
BAT: Beep… … … … Bing
Overlord: Well… at least let me taunt and humiliate them.



Overlord: Now lets hope I scared them off.



MISSION START!


Oh sweet lordy this level is tough. I may make mention of that a lot, but seriously. Actually, it’s not the level so much as the boss at the end of it. The stage just exists to drain your health and ammo before Overlord comes down and destroys you without hope. Rest assured, I saw the Continue Screen many a time before finishing it. Point in fact, this screen is from my third or fourth attempt.

Much of the stage is built along conveyors, which are peppered with bottomless pits and enemies. Near the top you can just make out a Cobra Pogo-Walker. The Walker is one of the best vehicles available but…



… Snake Eyes just can’t jump high enough to reach it. Drat.



“” snarks Snake Eyes as he passes this overpass. Part of the ceiling is destructible and a few well placed grenades open a path back to the Pogo Walker.



The Walker can take more hits then pretty well any other vehicle, can jump crazy-high and FILLS the screen with highly powerful shells. I love this thing so much.

Oddly, though I jammed the Screen Shot button like crazy, none of the other screens with the Pogo showed up in Photobucket, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.



Besides the constant threat of trained hawks (any ninja’s greatest foe) the escape tunnel in the Sewer Base is also loaded with brown B.A.Ts who attack with all the skill employed in the best tradition of Contra’s cannon-fodder enemies. By which I mean they run forward in a straight line until you either kill them, or they go off screen.

The tunnel is also stuffed with these So-Fast-It-Looks-Like-There’s-Two-of-Them Ninja’s. I’m going to assume that those ninja’s are Storm Shadow, that way there are more then 2 cool Cobra Operatives in this game.

Sure, Storm Shadow didn’t have purple sleeves or boots, but this game is probably non-canon, so it’s okay.



Snake Eyes is too agile to let minor threats like flame-throwers or gun turrets slow him down, which is just as well, since the throwers are invincible. The guns aren’t, and are usually positioned in such a place as to make it really easy to divide them with his sword.

Snake Eyes doesn’t truck with none of that mechanical ruckus, no sir.

Eventually, the level ends…

Cobra Dictator Driver: Overlord

As the shutter closes behind him, Snake Eyes’s vision quickly adjusts to the red gloom and notices a heap of machinery about 30 feet in front of him. His ninja skills of recollection inform him that he is facing down a Cobra Dictator, a poorly named, extremely well equipped vehicle that few in the organization had clearance to drive. Only one, in fact, had clearance. It was…

“Why hello my Ninja comrade!” booms the voice of the Overlord, “I hope my robot army didn’t… delay you”

Snake Eyes responded using one of his hands. Well, one part of his hand at least.

“Wow, umm… that was a bit uncalled for.”

Grid-Iron nodded. “Seriously, I’m no prude, but that guy’s just a cussy Mc.Cussingpants”

“You can bet your fine life that Cobra doesn’t stand for any rudeness, except from low level grunts and lackeys. Of course, that’s part of the reason they don’t get promoted.”

“Sounds like a nice work environment. Incidentally I kind of fell asleep during the mission briefing so… what is this base for, exactly?”

Overlord rubbed his metallic hands together, finally he was going to get a chance to deliver a menacing speech...

“Well, I’m trying to teach BATs to feel love.”

Grid-Iron was a bit surprised, though probably not for the reasons Overlord had intended. “How is that working out for you?” he inquired.

“Well… not so well. It seems your average Battle Android Trooper doesn’t really desire too many emotions. And you can imagine how how it is to teach something that nobody cares about learning. One said it felt hungry though, that’s a start!” there was a brief lull in the conversation after this.

“Anyway, this giant tank isn’t going to crush you itself, we better get this over with. Actually, it MAY crush you itself, it is partially sentient.”

Fun Fact about Overlord: I’m really only familiar with him from the Sigma Six cartoon, where he was an evil cyborg scientist rather then… Starscream in a tank. One of his robots looked a lot like Metal Gear Ray!



I think this boss fight alone is sufficient justification for not playing an action game without a controller. I stared down many a continue screen until I could finally beat him, and the bosses only get tougher from here on out (well, most of them).

Overlord has a pretty simple to figure out pattern, but it basically works out to you dancing across the screen trying desperately to avoid the huge salvo constantly coming at you.

First he’ll launch two missiles, one low enough that you can’t duck under it, and one slightly higher so you can, then he’ll split his chair off the Dictator and fling it at you, then the two halves will rejoin somewhere in the vicinity of wherever you’re currently standing, usually sandwiching you between them. He’s most likely still firing those missiles while you’re trying (and usually failing) to dodge his tanks reassembly.

I really, really, really hate this guy.



On top of all that, the Dictator can only take damage when both its halves are together, and only one small area on it even takes damage, so my usual strategy of “get right into their face and shoot the hell out of them” doesn’t work so well here.

You’ll notice that Snake Eyes is nearly dead in this shot, and that damn tank is still coming.



Grid-Iron was almost down too, leaving Rock & Roll alone to finish the fight. He, too, got the crap kicked out of him but, with his last gleaming moment, he delivered the killing blow to the Overlord and his mechanical behemoth.

As the tank ruptured and burst, The Overlord crawled free of the wreckage. His plans were thwarted, his base and lab about to be destroyed, but that’s not what he was so nervous about. He had to know if it was worth it. He beckoned Rock over.

“Tell me… Rock and Roll… can love bloom on the battlefield?”

With tears in his eyes, the G.I. Joe picked up the fallen cyborg and told him, “Love is a battlefield”.


And so, the day was saved. But at what cost?



Oh, sure, Snake Eyes caused columns of flames to explode from every manhole in New York, bringing chaos to the city and costing millions of dollars worth of damage, but they stopped a creepy robot man from performing nebulous deeds deep underground. And that’s what being a hero is all about.



G.I. Joe Headquarters
Mainframe: Sir, we’ve just got a massive seismic reading over the entirety of New York state. It’s safe to say that the team destroyed the Sewer Base. And most of the sewers…. Err… and the UN Building, apparently.
Hawk: Maybe giving the order to destroy that base wasn’t a good idea. Maybe just sealing it would have worked better.
Mainframe: Entirely likely sir. Here’s something that should cheer you up though, We’ve worked out what the next Cobra Base’s location is. We’re moving out to The Black Hills!
Hawk: Hot dang! I haven’t been to Mt. Rushmore since I was a kid!
Mainframe: The base isn’t actually close enough to Mt. Rushmore to see it, sir. Sorry.
Hawk: You… you just built me up to knock me down, didn’t you? Just put me on the big screen, you ass.



WELL MEN, YOU ALMOST MADE THAT LOOK TOO EASY, GREAT WORK!! THIS MISSION WILL BE AN ATTACK ON THE BASE IN THE BLACK HILLS. CAPT. GRID IRON, YOU'LL BE THE LEADER OF THIS MISSION, PLEASE SLECT YOUR TEAM YO JOE!!

And so we end the saga of the Sewer Computer Base, what perils await next? Could another 4th-string Cobra Operative be plotting ill-advised doom?

Tell me who to bring along and we’ll find out for sure!

You have to take Blizzard. It gets pretty cold up in those parts of the country.

I hear it's a Blizzard of a party with Rock&Roll, chief.

I don't care who you pick but I think you should write a haiku about each Joe.

You asked for it, you can't un-ask for it!

Hero to us all
Flint is the more exciting
Boring as hell, Duke

Prefers to stay safe
Stays in the cold and the chill
Is also a big wimp

Silent and deadly
Never makes a single sound
Makes a sailor blush

Shoots footballs from far
Can punch really good too, it hurts
Grid-Iron is awesome

The sound of music
Another one bites the dust
Those cannons are huge

Bravo. I especially love the line "Can punch really good too, it hurts".

It looks to me like they are Night Creepers.

Also, I share the sentiment that it's getting mighty cold in here...

Mission 4: Let’s Rush More!

In the Cobra Mountain Base
Roadpig: Voltar, I think you better look at this. There’s something at the bottom of the mountain.
Voltar: Is it a guy with one of those invisible dog leashes?
Roadpig: N- wait, actually… there is a guy with one of those. But that’s not what I wanted to show you.
Voltar: Too bad, I like those things.
Roadpig: They are wacky. But I meant that small group of G.I.Joes there looking up towards our base.
Voltar: Oh. I like that less.
Roadpig: And it looks like Captain Grid-Iron is calling the shots.
Voltar: Oh dude, that sucks. He punches really, REALLY hard. Last time I fought him he hit me so hard that everyone nearby died.
Roadpig: But you survived?
Voltar: It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. The devastation was poetry in motion. I would have thanked him, but then he shot a football at my head and I passed out.
Roadpig: Ahh.






Like a majestic bird of prey, Grid-Iron leaps off the mountain top and prepares to… climb that mountain again?

Also, while I’ve never been there, I don’t think the Black Hills were quite so… pink. If anything, I’d say they should be black.



“I’ll take the lead since anything that I can’t punch really hard I can hit with footballs until they explode.”

Blizzard nodded “That makes a lot more sense then letting me ever see any action whatsoever”.



True to form, as soon as his ascent begins, Grid-Iron is attacked from all sides by Cobra soldiers. In this case the kind that flies tiny helicopter chairs, actually, they’re more of deck chairs that have a propeller attached. Grid-Iron leaps to the sky and delivers a fatal punch to the… well, I struggle to refer to is as a cockpit but certainly the spot where the pilot is sitting.

“Would you like some Hawaiian PUNCH!” he asks the rapidly combusting pilot “I’m not Hawaiian, but I can give you the other part pretty good!”.

I really wish he would stop trying to deliver one-liners.



Besides the Propeller Chairs the mountain climb is also strew with run of the mill Vipers. A variance of projectile footballs and the Punch-of-Kill-Everything make short work of the faceless goon army.

You may also notice the heaps of Gun Upgrades strew throughout this level. This is wonderful news.



“Why is he standing on an empty Cliffside, punching the air?” asked Blizzard.
Blizzard turned to him, “He’s going to fly now”



After a long while of easy mountain climbing, the hill suddenly becomes much more steep and full of those Boomerang soldiers that Overlord was so fond of employing.

It’s around here that I noticed a bit of an oddity with the enemies respawn points. For the rest of this stage, and enemy that’s above me needs to be quite a ways off screen before they come back, but any enemy who was below me reappears almost instantly should I get knocked down.

And I got knocked down a lot since besides having obnoxiously placed jumps, those boomerangs are hard to dodge.



At least the green parts of the hillside are climbable, making the platforming much easier.



After a slightly longer then eternal climb and having spent many, many, many bullets, Grid-Iron climbs to the top of the mountain. The mountain top is the end of the stage, which means it’s boss time!

Cobra Anti-Gravity Pod: The A.G.P

There was a low whirr as a small aircraft appeared over the horizon. Grid-Iron was quick to identify it as a A.G.P., normally not much of a threat individually, but they’re usually attacked in huge swarms. This one was alone, and colored slightly different.

And if years of video games have taught me nothing else, it’s that slightly-different colored versions of enemies are more dangerous.

Fun Fact about the AGP: I was expecting this thing to be a pushover, after the ease I had fighting the Condor, Sea-Ray and FANG…



And the A.G.P. is no exception in this regard. This AGP has the genuinely unexpected ability to make a seemingly infinite number of copies of itself as it flies around bombarding you with guided missiles.



The copies are immobile, which is nice, but they stick around until you destroy them, and they can cause collision damage despite being holograms. I’m sure there’s an explanation for this, but it’s entirely too scientific to understand.

The whole fight is actually pretty similar to the third boss from Blaster Master, except you have a much smaller range of movement.



After many grenades, many bullets, and (perhaps most surprisingly) many Punches to the Face, the AGP finally explodes spectacularly.

Actually, what’s even more surprising then the fact that the stupid thing survived multiple Death Punches is the fact that it was BLIZZARD of all people who finally brought the thing down.

“If you ladies are done gabbing about your tea-cozies, let’s go inside, blow up this mountain range, and then go home. I’m tired and I haven’t had a decent meal in days.”

Roadpig: Crap, looks like Nullifier just bought it.
Voltar: Who?
Roadpig: Nullifier, you know, the guy who flies that little plane thing we keep outside the base.
Voltar: I didn’t think he had a name.
Roadpig: Neither did I, but it’s right here on the screen, Nullifier: A.G.P. pilot.
Voltar: Well, there you go then. I suppose this means that the Joes found our mountain base.
Roadpig: Probably, it’s not like we bothered to disguise it at all. I mean, we hollowed out Mount Rushmore and stuck a bunch of robots and armored troops inside it. That kind of thing attracts attention.
Voltar: Why did we do that, anyway?
Roadpig: Well, Destro was drunk, and it seemed like a good idea to him at the time.
Voltar: Do we have any demands? Or are we just here… hollowing out a mountain?
Roadpig: I told some of the diggers to try to carve some kick-ass skulls into the rocks. Besides that… no.
Voltar: Well great. I suppose we could threaten to bring down the mountain unless they pay us.
Roadpig: We already hollowed out the mountain, I think it’ll likely collapse whether we do that or not.
Voltar: Then they’ll take us seriously! Quick, put me on the monitor and I’ll let the Joes know!



Voltar: Oh wow, that kind of came out wrong.
Roadpig: Man, you mean I have to go out and stop them by myself?
Voltar: Sorry man. My bad.
Roadpig: You suck, Voltar. Seriously.
Voltar’s Vulture: Caw!

MISSION START!


“I’m kind of surprised that they were able to core out the entirety of Mount Rushmore without causing any part of the range to collapse.” Muses Blizzard, aloud “Cobra’s mining habits are to be commended”.

So here we are, on the inside of the mountain, faced with a mere 700 seconds to locate the 6 Bomb Check points in order to bring down the Cobra Mountain Base… and most likely the mountain it’s currently attached to.



“I question how useful giant flame throwers are in maintaining secrecy in a mine built into the side of a major landmark”.

Grid-Iron looked up, “Would you kindly stop musing about every detail of this installation and find us some damn rations before we bleed to death!”

“Geez, you’re pretty grouchy for a guy who took a few rockets in the gut, what about you Rock, anything you need to stave off death for a few hours?”

Rock & Roll grunted as he turned over, “Bad Medicine is what I need”.

“Err… okay. GOOD medicine would work too, right?

Incidentally, that platform the flamethrower is stationed on is one of those “You can jump straight down through it” kinds. There’s a good reason for this.



“I’m really glad I go strong haunches, otherwise this landing would hurt pretty badly”



Luckily a mere fall of about 200 feet fails to damage our vaguely-heroic, parka clad hero, and it shows our first Check Point. Awesome!





The left wall is too high to jump over, and there are no hand grips, so it looks like I took a wrong turn somewhere. Luckily, the right wall is a staircase guarded by numerous flame throwers. Which, if not ideal, is at least passable.



At the top of the stairs, there’s a lone Viper who goes down to a quick poke from Blizzards knife. Also despite appearances, that patch of ground can be leapt down through.



This leads to a conveniently placed Buzzboar. As always, being safe for a few hits is welcome, and being able to take out even the strongest of enemies with a couple of hits is even more welcome. Being able to easily navigate a mostly vertical stage is perhaps the nicest gift of all.

These platforms are covered with flamethrower-armed guards. I’m assuming they’re supposed to be one of the Dreadnoks. Torch, I should think.



The Buzzboar was nearly destroyed climbing the wall, but at least it kept Blizzard alive and it lead to another Check.



The Boar finally explodes, but not before dropping Blizzard off where he began, by the staircase, this time having to climb up them again with no free hits or powerful extra weapons.



It ends up working as well as you might expect. Why do all the Cobra operatives have beards?



Time for round two! Actually, I think this is round three by this point, as I was still working out how to navigate the map on my second try.



Heading up and to the left instead of down reveals an easily found Check.



The good captain wastes no time priming an explosive to… errr… demolish the inside of a national landmark. Like the Real American Hero he is?



Another Check is in the top left corner of the map, but there are several rock walls to knock down before we can reach it.




Honestly, I’m surprised that knocking down all those walls (with footballs, and The Punch of God) didn’t collapse the mine in and of itself.

The left side of the mine shaft is guarded by another cluster of flame throwers, and drops Grid-Iron in front of another checkpoint. This is, itself, in front of that first Check I found all those minutes ago.




That’s four, only two to go.

Grid-Iron retraces the route that Blizzard mentioned to him earlier and found the Buzzboar and the fifth Check. Grid-Iron is a significantly better pilot then Blizzard, and managed to navigate the rest of the Base without losing it.


There’s the fifth and final, placed just inside a concealed room. Nothing left but the exit.



Which was close-by the last check. I love it when a plan comes together. Time for a boss, Roadpig I should think.



Oh… this is a bit different. Usually the bosses are on the one screen, but this fight is involving a climb on some conveyors. This may be a bad sign.


Incredibly Difficult Boss Fight, and also a Dreadnok: Roadpig

“WHOOOOOOO DARES FIGHT THE ROOOOOOADPIG!” booms a voice from the massive frame atop the highest conveyor.

“Uhh… we do, Mr. Pig, sir”

“IIIIIII AM THE ROOOOOOADPIG!”

“Yeah, we pretty much figured that out ourselves,” says Blizzard, “Would you mind not shouting so much?”

Roadpig was a bit disappointed by his reception, but he decided to play along anyway. After all, he was the one carrying very large boulders and carrying a sledgehammer, if they were being condescending to him, they must have a good reason. “Sorry, I tend to get a better reaction from that from my underlings”.

“I can see why, it’s quite threatening. If you don’t mind telling us, why are you guys strip-mining Mount Rushmore?”

“Well… if the government doesn’t meet our demands we’ll… blow it up!”

Roadpig was ready for the question before it was asked, but allowed it anyway, “What are those demands”.

“We’re a very forward thinking organization dedicated to global anarchy and chaos. We’re making it a point to prime the mountain for demolition BEFORE we think of any demands to ask for. It’s much more efficient this way”. Roadpig wasn’t lying about this, Cobra has been very forward thinking lately.

“Oh… so we didn’t need to run around the base planting bombs then?”

“’fraid not. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some boulders to heave.”

Fun Fact about Roadpig: There is nothing fun about Roadpig.


Good lord on high, I hate this boss fight. I had to continue about 5 times before I was in a position where I could beat him. The good news is that Roadpig has only the one attack and a relatively easy pattern. He’ll run out, throw a rock, and then run back off screen. The boulders bounce around erratically, and are very hard to dodge. Also, being hit by them has enough of a recoil to known you back to the bottom of the chamber assuming you’re lucky. It’s also pretty likely to knock you into that massive hole.

Staying on the platform WILL protect you from the rocks, and the recoil isn’t nearly as likely to throw you very far, but you’re certain to take Collision Damage from Roadpig himself, and he hits MUCH harder then his rocks do.

After a great deal of fighting, shooting and raging at whatever cruel monster created such a boss fight, I worked out that the best strategy is to stay on the second highest platform, turn around and fire away, ignoring the rocks. They still deal damage, but assuming you go in with full health and you swap out whatever Joe is about to die you should be able to bring down the Pig with at least one Joe at nearly full health.

There’s something to be said for a suicidal lack of dodging instinct.



The hulking Dreadnok collapses, bathed in blue flame as his boulders become immaterial.

“Tell… Zatarra I… love her...” gasps Roadpig as he breathes his last.

“I don’t think she’s in this game, sorry.” Grid-Iron said.

“Ohh… nuts.”

I watched GIJOE but oustide the leaders of Cobra, I don't remember any of their names, I didn't even know cobra troops were called vipers!

So this LP has so far been both entertaining and educational.

I stopped playing this game (even with save states) after dying multiple times to the rocket launching bastard boss of the ice level... impossible...

Keep up the good work!

The Cobra Mountain Base

Voltar: I don’t hear Road Pig throwing any more boulders. He must have crushed the Joes.
Voltars Vulture: CAW!
Voltar: Uhh… yeah.
Voltars Vulture: CAW!
Voltar: Does anyone hear speak vulture?
Dreadnok: Yeah, I can.
Voltar: Do you know what he’s talking about?
Voltars Vulture: CAW!
Voltar: Well?
Dreadnok: Naw, I was just screwin’ with ya. I can’t talk to birds. I just came here to say that the camera started blinking that picture there.



Voltar: Oh that’s bad.
Dreadnok: Yeah, that’s what I thought too.
Voltar: Uhh… do… do you know how to get on the telescreen at least?
Dreadnok: Man, I was hired because I like chainsawing things, not because I use computers.
Voltars Vulture: CAW!
Voltar: Oh, there we go. Thank you Vulture.
Voltars Vulture: CAW!



MISSION START!



Like the rest of the Black Hills, the Escape Tunnel is almost completely vertical. It’s also loaded with inconveniently placed enemies, such as these rocket launchers.



And the games hit detection is just spotty enough to make it hard to avoid the rockets. Luckily, the fire slowly enough that you could easily pass them before they fire again, but I didn’t know that and ended up taking a couple of hits.



Grid-Iron is also assailed by various Armchair-Commandos armed with homing missiles. And like so many other enemies in this level, they’re placed in such a way that it’s hard to sneak past them without taking damage. When lucky, ol’ Man Grid doesn’t get knocked back down the mountain.

He doesn’t get very lucky very often.



Voltar also has a squadron of Vipers who have propellers on their backs. Luckily, they don’t show up until near the exit.

Despite the incredibly obnoxious enemy placement, and jumps that are almost too far for anyone with a lower jump then Grid-Iron to make, the level is fairly short and not exasperatingly difficult. Thank heaven for small favors.


Destros General: Voltar

As the (mostly deceased) Joe Team entered the final chamber of the Black Hills base, a purple clad soldier was waiting for them. A Vulture flew above him, hungrily.
“Well, good day my friends, I am Voltar, Destro’s second in command. You’re looking well this evening”.

Grid-Iron was the most lively Joe at the moment, so he decided to speak up, doing his very best to intimidate the Iron Grenadier.

“Quit yer squawkin’ Birdy!” he yelped, voice cracking a little, “Get out of our way or will fight you! Hard!”

There was a shrill ‘CAW!’ from the vulture flying overhead. Voltar sighed, partly at the lameness of Grid-Irons threat, but mostly at his bird.

“You know, I’ve had that stupid bird for about 6 years now and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it do anything useful. You’d think that a big badass mercenary like me would have trained it to peck out my enemies eyes, or scour for munitions on the fallen or something, but no. I just can’t work with animals. I mean, even Raptor trained his Hawk to act like a boomerang, and he was the second boss! Mine, he just floats around up there, uselessly.”

“I’m sorry to hear that” said Grid-Iron.

“Naw, it’s all right. I should have known what I was getting into when I bought a Vulture as a pet. The guy at the shop said they were hard to train, and not well suited for military life but I was all ‘Well, my code name sounds like Vulture, so I need a Vulture to complete the image’. I could have put a bird on my suit or something, but nope, I went and got the actual bird.

There was another shrill ‘CAW!’ after this.

“Stupid animal is giving me a headache. Lets get this over with”.

Fun Fact about Voltar: It was a struggle to keep myself from writing ‘Voltron’, or ‘Volgin’ every time his name came up.

The good news is that Voltar is a LOT easier then Roadpig or Overlord ever were. Of course he still has access to a lot of highly damaging attacks, and the level that leads to him is pretty darn treacherous and frequently leads to a low life bar when you reach him. So you have to take the good with the bad here.

It’s a bit hard to make out, but there are lasers built into the sides of the walls. Periodically one will light up and fire a beam straight across the screen, usually shredding off 3 or 4 life points. Luckily only one gets shot at a time, they’re spaced pretty far apart, and you have a few seconds warning before each shot goes off, so they aren’t too threatening.

Voltar also shoots at you rapidly, but luckily each shot is high enough that you can duck under them, even if you couldn’t each bullet only deals one point of damage.

The REAL danger here is from the collision damage you get from Voltar smacking into you. This also deals 3-4 points of damage, and if you’re focusing more on dodging the lasers or are trying to rely on the Punch-Of-Kill-Everything to win, odds are that he will trample you to death pretty easily.

Also, the Vulture just circles along the top of the screen. I didn’t bother staying on the top level, but presumably he’s just there to hit your with collision damage as well, if you try to jump.

He flashes when you hit Voltar though.




Really, pretty easily.



Round Two is a smoother climb for the most part, but Grid-Iron only has one hit point by the time he reached the top. Sadly, no kind hearted Viper chose to relinquish a flashing can of rations near the top like they did last time.

Similar to Roadpig, it seems that the ideal strategy is a willingness to get hit. Since his bullets aren’t NEARLY as painful as the Lasers or collision damage, you should stay on the bottom level (more room to maneuver), duck under most of his bullets while firing back constantly. When he gets near, stand up and get shot, and use the mercy-invincibility to protect yourself until he passes you.

It also seems that Swapping Joes gives you a slightly longer period of time in which you’re safe. Or at least it seems to, so I swapped the bajeezus out of who I was using until I was safely staring at Voltar’s backside.


It was a very near miss, but I managed to beat Voltar with no casualties. You may also notice that it required me shooting him in the face, chest, back and knee’s about 100 times to finally kill the jerk.

In fairness, many of those 100 bullets came from Blizzard’s little tickle-gun.

As Voltar fell, exploding, he looked up “Don’t let my stupid bird eat me, please”.

“Uhh, don’t think you have a lot to worry about there, chief. Looks like the bird is exploding into orange flame right now.”

“Well…. At least tell Destro I want to be given a proper Viking funeral”

“Again, you’re taken care of there too. What with you exploding into flame and all”

“Man, you guys are the best”

“Aren’t we just?”



And so, the G.I. Joe team successfully… blows up Mount Rushmore. You might think I’m kidding, and I only managed to get shots of it blinking, but I swear, the entire friggin’ mountain range explodes and crumbles.

G.I.Joe blew up Mount Rushmore.

Seriously.



Congraturation!

G.I.Joe Command
Mainframe: Oh jeez, it looks like the Away team just blew up Mount Rushmore, sir. I think the press is going to be pretty ticked with us.
Hawk: Nosy wimps. When I was in the team, we knew that sometimes we had to destroy a priceless monum-
Mainframe: Sir?
Hawk: -mmph!
Mainframe: Hello?
turns around
Mainframe: General Hawk, sir? Where did you g-… oh crap. I… I better let the team know.


GENERAL HAWK HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED!! ROCK AND ROLL, TAKE YOUR BEST MEN INTO THE SAHARA DESERT, WHERE HE IS BEING HELD, AND RESCUE HIM. COBRA COMMANDER THINKS THAT HE CAN HOLD US OFF BY WEAK TERRORIST ACTS, HE'LL FEEL THE POWER OF OUR TEAM! YO JOE!!!!!

Grid-Iron: Wait, what do you mean, General Hawk has been kidnapped?
Mainframe: Well… umm… I mean that Destro’s men came in and took him.
Blizzard: No, I think Grid-Iron means how the hell did GENERAL HAWK get kidnapped? He’s kind of an army unto himself.
Mainframe: Well…. You see, the thing is-
Duke: And how in Sam Hill could the leader of the Elite Special Mission Force get kidnapped from the MIDDLE of the Headquarters of said force?
Mainframe: They snuck in when my back was turned! All right! That’s why I don’t go on missions! Because I don’t pay attention to things like that! No you lot get your asses to that desert and find Hawk before anyone else finds out and I get fired! Or court-martialed. Or shot.


So the next mission takes us to Casa de Destro, which, in this instance, is in the middle of the Saharra Desert. Rock & Roll is the team leader, but who ELSE will get chosen?

Probably Grid-Iron and Blizzard, if previous levels are any indication.

You're right, we should probably let Duke and Snake Eyes in on the action.

I'm sick of Blizzard, take Snake eyes again, Hawk too, mostly because I don't like football, (how Unamarican of me)

Hawks the guy we're rescuing, not who we can play as. yet.

Oh yeah... I meant Duke