One of the games I got to see and play at E3 was the Xbox 360 version of EA’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra, which was released Aug. 4. The game was inspired by the live-action film based on the classic cartoon, but the game takes place after the events of the movie. Whatever the case, the G.I. Joe franchise is sure to make the game appealing to those who grew up with the cartoon from the mid-1980s and will hopefully attract a new generation.

In G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra you can play a single-player game and swap between you and the other character following you (controlled by AI), or you can have a friend pick up the second controller and the second character. There are about 20 missions that take place in various environments (inside, outside, jungles, Arctic, etc.) with various objectives. The goal of G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra is to get high scores and unlock playable characters (14 Joes and four Cobras) and the classic public service announcements. The concept is basic and reminded me of other arcade games, but what comes to mind are fighting games instead of mission-based games.

You have unlimited ammunition and your health autoregenerates. The point of G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra isn’t to collect items or level your character. The point is to kill enemies without taking damage, using bonuses and mad skills. The skills vary among the characters, and you get to decide who is best in what situations.

When I picked up the controls to play, they were fairly intuitive. I was told you could get by with the left and right thumb sticks, but if you want more advanced moves, those are available, too. I wasn’t really button-mashing, which was good, but I think I could have if I wanted to. But I didn’t have to, and that was appealing.

The sounds are what you would expect from a G.I. Joe game: gunfire, explosions, etc. The graphics for the Xbox 360 version may not be award-winning or movie-quality, but they were impressive for the game and genre. They made me think of uber-arcade graphics. I don’t think the developers could have made them too awesome, though, because of the gameplay. But I don’t think they needed to.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra is rated T for “fantasy violence,” but I think the arcade and cartoon styles make it appropriate for some tweens. If you are a fan of the classic G.I. Joe cartoons or the new movie or just really like shooter arcade games that let you rank high on leaderboards, you’ll like this game. And because it’s related to a major franchise (and despite my personal general opinion that brands shouldn’t increase price), G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra is worth the cost of a new game.