Cobra II

~ COBRA II ~

Hudson Soft

CD-ROM

1991

I hadn't yet played the first Cobra when I decided to give its sequel a try, but that didn't matter because C2's very cheesy, very entertaining, overly dramatic introductory text (presented in English) brought me right up to speed. Cobra is a goofy (but BADASS) space pirate who can remove his left arm to reveal his mighty secret weapon, the PSYCHO GUN.

And off he goes through the universe, meeting up with bizarre aliens and scantily clad women.

You really never know what's coming next in Cobra II, character- or plot-wise, and that's probably the most appealing thing about it. You'll be exploring a desolate world that seems to be all in ruins, and then suddenly you'll run into a rock band jamming out, with an armored knight on electric guitar.

You'll do battle with "Round Wolves," "Death Balls," android executioners, and a big bald blue dude in a wrestling ring.

There's a decent amount of violence and some shocking and bloody moments (characters taking laser blasts to the face and whatnot)...

...but there isn't too much sex stuff, despite the scantily clothed females. In fact, the one bit of romance is rather innocent and plays out quite nicely!

You'll have a slightly easier time getting through the game if you can read a little Japanese, as many of the clues telling you where to go or whom to talk to next are presented in katakana. You'll have to spend some time treading back and forth between locations or just playing with the menu commands (the typical digital comic routines), but there are enough cool surprises to keep you moving through the dull stuff. One part near the very end, a puzzle where you have to press six lenses of various colors in the proper sequence, can be very problematic. You could spend a lot of time buttoning through all the permutations...

...or, if that idea doesn't appeal to you for some reason, just immediately enter the correct order of red, green, blue, yellow, white, purple.

While Cobra II isn't that much more interactive than your typical comic, it does feature some distinct sequences. For instance, when one particularly tough baddie is chasing after you, you'll have to blast open the door to a morgue, dash upstairs, hide in an empty coffin, and then judge the sound of the villain's footsteps (they get louder and softer) to know exactly when it'll be all right for you to pop out, take him by surprise, and annihilate him.

It's possible to screw up and die in some parts, but you can save whenever you want, and if you get killed, the game just sends you back a short way (ensuring that you don't end up saving yourself into a bad position).

Upbeat tunes really get me into certain action-packed scenes, but there are a few annoying sound effects (alerts, radar blips, etc.). The graphics are pretty good on the whole, with some very cool visual moments here and there. The characters look extremely goofy at times, but that just kinda adds to the awesome overall cheesiness.

Cobra II is a heck of a lot of fun--so much fun, in fact, that it ranks as my favorite digital comic.