Yo, JOE! It’s 1991 maybe!
The MIX is one of our favorite events at game expos, usually happening off-show and bringing oodles of great indie games to the public. This year’s PAX West version of their showcase has brought us some kinda awesome retro feels. Kinda VERY awesome.
There’s a new G.I. JOE game on the way. Wrath of Cobra, from Freedom Games and Maple Powered Games, takes what we liked about the series — mainly, all of them cool characters — and tosses them into a sort of Streets of Rage sidescrolling brawler.
The game is part of Hasbro’s retro arcade initiative to take its IP and create nostalgic products around them — as if they’re straight from the era they first became popular in. The game will launch with a bunch of playable characters that have their own movesets, and post-launch content will include more characters and modes.
Meanwhile, the Rugrats are back! Wallride Games is developing Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland as a tried and true late NES era experience, down to the murky visuals and blocky pixel art of the time. Purple heads! Fuzzy backgrounds! Weird perspectives! It’s all there, and it all looks absolutely great. It’s designed to look and play like a game that came out around the time of the show, 1991, when the NESc was in its dying years and the Super NES was about to take over.
What’s perhaps even more impressive is that there’s an option in the game to play it in HD with hand-drawn art and characters! The game is coming to consoles and PC and — gasp! — the original NES (albeit it won’t have the HD visuals).
Look for both games to hit your platforms of choice in 2024.
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