Mission Cobra
System: NES
Release Date: 1990
Developer: Joy Van
Publisher: Bunch Games
Genre: Shoot ‘em Up
Hop in a chopper and take to the skies to defeat the bad guys in Mission Cobra! I don’t know who the enemies are or what they want with me, but I’m going to kill them. Seemingly unending numbers of fighter jets and other aircraft will fall before you. This chopper is so advanced, it even makes its way into space! Yeah, it doesn’t make sense.
Your chopper automatically flies to the top of the screen and you can kill all the enemies that fly at you by pressing the A Button. You have an energy reserve that depletes as you go fly through the level and when you get hit by enemies and bullets. Occasionally, enemies will drop a power up. One of these is an energy cell that increases your energy level by 10 points. Another is a reservoir that sets your energy level to 66. Another is a shield that protects you from energy drain.
There are also weapons that are dropped. You start with a single beam, but can upgrade to a double beam, the triple beam, a four way shot that shoots in all cardinal directions, or the angled shot, which shoots one ahead and one at the 45s. I preferred the triple beam and angled shot, as my go to weapons. I disliked the four way, because you can only shoot one set of beams on screen at a time, but it did make one of the bosses really easy.
Levels consist of three portions and a boss. The first portion is a swarm of enemies. This finishes with a battle against two heavily armored black choppers. If you destroy them, they leave you 30 energy. Then the second wave of enemies, which is just like the first. This leads into the speedup portion, which is the same as before, except the background elements move by really quickly. This is capped with a battle against a boss. Each of them shoot projectiles at you and require you to destroy all firing ports to destroy them. You’re then given your point total. Once you beat the third level, it loops for you to play again and again and again.
Graphics: 1.0
It doesn’t look good. In fact, it’s pretty bad.
Sound: 0.5
There are some really annoying sound effects with no music to temper them.
Gameplay: 2.0
I’ll give Mission Cobra some props for not giving me constant one hit deaths and resembling a functioning shoot ‘em up.
Difficulty: 1.5
You only get one life, so see how far you can go.
Fun Factor: 0.5
It’s really boring.
Overall Rating: 1.1
Mission Cobra earns a D. It’s not a good game. Not the worst thing I’ve ever played, but not good at all.