Cobra Triangle Review

As far as Gamestyle can tell there is plot that surrounds Cobra Triangle. For some reason there is a bloke in a boat who shoots things, but this is the NES so Gamestyle was not looking for something as epic as Final Fantasy VII.

Words by Gareth Chappell. Platform: Nintendo Nintendo Entertainment System

9 ^{out of} 10

Developed by Rare, Cobra Triangle is a strange video game; you have a boat which is dropped into a large variety of missions, bizarre? Certainly, but then that is not to say it is not a good game, in fact it is one of the best games ever to come out on the NES.

The game is set across a number of levels, each of which is different form the last. One level may have you simply racing to the finish, whilst another could involve removing mines, saving drowning people, jumping waterfalls, going through an assault course or even taking on a huge sea monster in a titanic life or death battle.

Variety is definitely the name of the game with Cobra Triangle and it is what helps to excel the title to gaming greatness. Graphically Cobra Triangle is solid without being remarkable. Everything moves along at a high rate and slowdown never once appears to ruin the gameplay. The boat is a triangle shape coloured in with two colours, the backgrounds fair little better mainly consisting of blue for the water and green for the land. It is animated well with the boat tipping up at the back depending how fast you are going and monsters taking up half the screen at the time.

The biggest problem is flickering which is apparent a little more than it should be, this is mainly because in certain areas of the game there is to much on screen moving to fast, apart from that though it functions well. The variation in level design and gameplay is what lifts the game to greatness. The boat is superbly controllable allowing you to make near handbrake turns with ease, essential as the pace never lets up from start to finish. Each level really feels like something fresh - meaning you never get bored of just doing the same thing over and over again, furthermore you look forward to seeing what the next level will bring making the game highly addictive even now. Overall Cobra Triangle is a stunning game.

Graphically its certainly not amazing, but they do the job and it allows the gameplay to really shine. Upon release it was mostly ignored by the gaming public, mainly due to poor coverage from magazines - this is probably why it was never remade for the new consoles. In years to come it would be great to see a remake like with Spy Hunter as this has all the style, and a lot more originality than that franchise. Another example of why Rare where the hottest property around back in the gaming golden age.