Nightdive as usual does a fantastic job in polishing up all the shortcomings that came with the original release while retaining everything that made it good on the first place. The large, open levels full of secrets and exploration, the large weapon variety, the stellar enemy animations, the eerie atmosphere. Mand I don't envy the people who had to beat this on the original N64 with the limited speed/draw distance and almost no guides. By modern FPS standards this game can be bloody confusing and cryptic with its stage design and by the time I got to the final boss, I was less thrilled and more exhausted. If you want to check a cult chapter of 90's video gaming, this version is the one to go for.

It's interesting to see nostalgia bring back genres of games that were forgotten about. Boomer shooters, Roguelikes, 2d Metroidvanias, the list goes on. One genre that is yet to receive a revival is the 3d person lock on shooter genre. Perhaps it died with Resi 4 or with better aiming controls but even in the 360 generation we didn't see many games like Jet Force Gemini any more. So, when I booted up G.I.Joe and saw it was a coop 3rd person lock-on shooter, I was pleasantly surprised. The game has a fixed camera and when you encounter enemies you just lock on and fire, using the right stick to switch between enemies. This enjoyment lasted all of about 10 minutes until I remembered that these type of games kinda suck and are extremely repetitive. G.I.Joe is basically that, a crappy repetitive shooter than isn't even really much fun with a friend. There are collectables, there are different character classes, there's a half-baked story and voice acting lines but none of this can save the bad gameplay. The most frustrating part is that it is pretty easy to die and then you need to start the whole level all over again. I don't mind this difficulty, but there is not much you can do about getting killed. There is very little cover and any cover you do find explodes 3 seconds after you hide behind it leaving you feeling frustrated. Let's not bring back the lock-on shooters, they are not good. If you want proof of how much they suck, play this.