GI JOE: OPERATION BLACKOUT

Yo Joe? Go Joe…

With character names seemingly created by a porn algorithm there’s a saucy subtext to this throwback, throwaway shooter. When hero Snow Job comes to our rescue it’s one of the rare moments we raise a smile.

Based on the GI Joe toys, Operation Blackout is a third-person shooter that brings nothing new to PS4. The action flips between playing as heroes and the villains of Cobra. The plot unfolds around one campily cackling villain wanting to dominate the world and another backstabber who attempts to do the same. A snake-themed outfit is more important than loyalty, it seems.

The plot is forgettable; it’s unnecessary clutter in a barebones shooter that never attempts anything new. Each mission casts you as a character with specific abilities and loadouts, 1 with the grind of getting to each level’s end while surviving hordes of enemies the only challenge. It could be serviceable with a friend in co-op, but the basics are so bad there’s little satisfaction from shooting the same robotic enemies time and again. 2

The controls are stiff and clumsy, with the act of targeting a running enemy becoming its own meta-game. GI Joe: Operation Blackout feels so much like a PS1 game you often find your thumb slipping to the D-pad as surely something can make this work properly. Special attacks are powered up but rarely affect the outcome of a shootout, and melee combat lacks any response.

You’ve played this before, 25 years ago on PS1. The ideas are ancient, the implementation poor, and when a dubiously named hero is the only fun you get from a shooter in

2020 it’s time to avoid. Ian Dean

FOOTNOTES1 Single-fire weapons are impossible to target, so best opt for the pray-and-spray Uzi. With only a half dozen environments the game even repeats its levels multiple times.