G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout Embraces Nostalgia and Growing Up

How do you capture something so absurdly over the top yet low budget as G.I. Joe? Hollywood’s struggled with the idea for years, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who remembers the old Joe games. So you can understand my surprise when I discovered Iguana Bee and Fair Play Labs’ G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout – an earnest, cel-shaded third-person homage to the classic cartoon.

Nostalgia’s a tricky thing to keep in balance. Go too far dismissing it, and you alienate those who care the most about the series. Appeal too hard to fan service, and you leave newcomers bored and left out of the loop. That’s what makes Operation Blackout so surprising. It follows in the footsteps of LEGO Star Wars, adapting something familiar while presenting it in a new way? – ?just with more of a nostalgic adult audience in mind in this case.

At the start of the campaign, the villains of Cobra reign supreme thanks to a swift sneak attack while the Joes scramble. The last free agents are left to see if they can save the day against all odds – it almost feels like a bonus series finale. Yet you play a role on both sides of the conflict across a series of strike missions. You won’t find jaw dropping nuance, but that’s the point. G.I. Joe has some more emotionally complex tales in IDW’s comics, but the core experience is catchphrases flying faster than laser beams.

Many franchises that try to go self-aware end up being blunt as a shovel. It takes a great deal more restraint to intentionally capture a more absurd setting. Both classic and modern G.I. Joe character designs are melded into a style that feels both retro yet nicely updated. Once the action kicks off, the cel-shaded visuals offer a crisp landscape that practically pops off the screen. Motion comics capture the vibe of flipping through an old comic bundled in with a figure. This attention to detail extends beyond the framing to the aesthetics.

It can’t be overstated, the shader work here is just superb, doing a lot of heavy lifting to capture the energy of a tangible 80’s cartoon. It really looks like you’re walking around inside a show from that era, with even basic elements like capture points and exploding robots keeping your eyes arrested as each mission plays out. Most of these environments are like walking around in action figure playsets, with brightly colored military bases.

These vibrant visuals bring the roster to life. You’ve got your obvious fan favorites like Scarlett, Baroness, Roadblock, and Snake Eyes, but there’s some nicher surprises here too. I mean, come on, who expected Dial Tone to be a voiced character, let alone a vehicular stage starring Lifeline and Mainframe firing off jokes about the odd internal logic of the franchise.

Operation Blackout boasts just enough nerding out to appeal to original fans while updating each character’s vocal delivery to be charming to modern players. It’s a gradual update rather than a seismic shift. No one’s trying to justify how the setting works. Instead, they’re selling you on the core premise purely on its own charming merits.

Obviously this all may feel dated and riddled with obvious plot twists to someone new to the franchise, but that’s the point. Corny nonsense is what G.I. Joe is great at. It’s like Transformers? – ?the point isn’t to end the story but to have some goofy fun with over the top performances. There’s a dedicated emote button, even in single-player, so you can strike a dramatic pose when you complete an objective. These developers completely understood the assignment here; going above and beyond to really capture even the cheesiest aspects lovingly.

This translates over to the game design as well. Did I mention there’s BOSS FIGHTS? Old school boss fights with the shiny health bars, unique attack patterns, and dynamic dialogue? You might be sniping against Zartan, escaping a constantly regenerating Destro, or dodging Scarlett’s crossbow bolts as hordes of Joes swarm you.

Oh and none of those enemies are bullet sponges either, refreshingly enough. Well, to be fair, you can make them into unyielding titans with infinitely larger healthbars if you up the difficulty setting, but even then you can counterbalance this with a litany of mission modifiers that work like skulls in Halo. Or if you’re looking for things to be more accessibly inclined, you can make the experience as breezy as a Saturday morning cartoon. Once again, Operation Blackout understands it needs to get with the times while appreciating what came before.

Several complaints I saw directed at Operation Blackout were specifically due to this laid back guns blazing gameplay, but… why? Is it really a bad thing that Operation Blackout isn’t yet-another cover shooter or a slow grind like Destiny? Your characters are fully functional the moment you play as them, and you can replay missions as anyone from the starring faction. This game is all about getting in, having fun, and sitting on your shelf if you want to dive in again. Is it really a bad thing for a game to not try and make itself part of your whole lifestyle?

I mean they even nailed the on-rails vehicle sections. They have great pacing, a variety of hazards, branching routes, and some boss fights of their own. I honestly had forgotten how good a vehicle section could be as a pace breaker when done right. That’s something to be said for Operation Blackout in general. It isn’t angling to rewrite the rulebook, but doing its best within a nostalgic framework. I feel like that’s really where the critical mark misread Operation Blackout.

It’s not trying to be Overwatch, it’s more like hanging out with a childhood friend again. You’ve both grown up, you realize how silly some of the things you loved back then were, but you let go for a minute and relax again. That’s not easily achieved, especially in a commercial endeavor. Operation Blackout was never going to be Saving Private Ryan, but it’s a thrilling little jaunt down memory lane well worth experiencing.

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With over ten of writing years in the industry, Elijah’s your guy for all things strange, obscure, and spooky in gaming. When not writing articles here or elsewhere, he’s tinkering away at indie games and fiction of his own.