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■ G.I. Joe
G.I. Joe is an American media franchise and a line of action figures owned and produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier (U.S. Army), Action Sailor (U.S. Navy), Action Pilot (U.S. Air Force), Action Marine (U.S. Marine Corps), Action lifeline (U.S. Coast Guard) and later on, the Action Nurse.

G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra

The long summer of gaming continues with a handful of free games courtesy of Amazon’s Prime Gaming and Epic Games. One of the recent free games was a side-scrolling, beat ‘em up game called G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra (Sep 2024).

If you’re a member of Amazon Prime, be sure to collect the game before it expires. You get to keep the game, even after your Prime expires, so if you want this game for free – you can sign up for a trial account. I get over 50 free games a year, so it’s definitely worth it (in my opinion). Of course, some games you won’t care for, but once in a while, there are some gems.

Anyway, this beat ‘em up genre started in 1984 with Kung-Fu Master, which I’ve never played. The most popular beat-em up game is Double Dragon in 1987. That’s the game that my brother and I played in co-op. The video was so popular that it launched a movie, a cartoon show, and comic book (I bought the first issue featuring cover art by Jim Lee).

The success of Double Dragon launched copycat games such as Golden Axe (my favorite all-time beat ‘em up – a game I can beat on one quarter in the arcade), Final Fight (1989), The Simpsons (1991), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1991), Streets of Rage (1991), and X-Men (1992).

In more modern times, it would seem the genre has made a comeback, better and more nostalgic than ever. I think it really started with Streets of Rage 4, made in 2021 from Dotemu (one of my favorite game developers). The game sold over 2.5 million copies when it launched in 2021. Dotemu followed up with another well-received beat ‘em up game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge the following year. Also, another one of my instant favorites. One of my brother’s friends came over and we were smashing it up with the new TMNT and it was just a blast.

Dotemu’s latest Marvel Cosmic Invasion came out last year, and I got to play the demo. I’ll eventually pick up the game when it’s on sale…

I guess you can add G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra to the ever-growing list of modern beat ‘em up games. If you’re into 80’s cartoons, there’s another one called He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction that is coming out soon. That’s a game that I have an eye on… but like I mentioned earlier, I’ll only buy the game if the price is right… and with the G.I. Joe being FREE, the price is right! Look, I did play with Snake Eyes a bit and it was just a little boring on the first stage. Maybe I just have to give it a little more time, but at the moment, despite my love for beat ‘em up and G.I. Joe, I didn’t have interest in spending more time with the game.

Annihilated

Annihilated is an upcoming RPG that combines Deckbuilder Roguelite with Anime Visual Novel.

The story of Annihilated is that you’re the only survivor in a rescue party in a deep, dark dungeon. It’s up to you to bring back your party of broken heroes.

Details from their Steam Page:

You are the sole survivor and your party has been annihilated. They are BROKEN and you can only save ONE in this dark RPG that mixes deckbuilder roguelite gameplay with cute and twisted anime visual novel narrative. Get ready for high lethality, unforgiving random events, and instant retries!

It looks interesting, I like the randomness of rogue games… but that whole anime style drives me nuts and I really don’t care for visual novels (I hate putting my controller down to watch a cutscene). However, if anime is your thing, the game comes out July 22, 2026, on PC (via Steam).