When I first looked at the G.I. Joe TCG, however, I was a little skeptical. In retrospect, those rubber-band minis never posed right. The cartoon was silly – hundreds of guys shooting guns, and nobody ever dies. G.I. Joe has a history of being mutilated by the marketing guys cashing in on its popularity, and it takes more than some comic-book art to make me a fan. I wanted the G.I. Joe game to rock on toast. I wanted to remember what it felt like to stuff Duke into the driver’s seat of a Cobra tank and chase after little awkward villains with a cannon the size of my arm.
The G.I. Joe TCG certainly brings back some of that nostalgia. After all, a game decorated with drawings of Duke and Destro is pretty cool just for having those characters. And no self-respecting G.I. Joe fan can turn up his nose to Snake Eyes, no matter how jaded that fan might be.
The Game
My favorite aspect of the G.I. Joe TCG is the card layout. Every single card represents another soldier, so when you’re building your deck, you’ll have the opportunity to include every butt-kicking grunt you ever wanted to be. Some heroes and villains are represented more than once – for example, there’s Duke: First Sergeant and Duke: Field Commander – but I couldn’t think of a favorite figure whose card wasn’t in either the starter or a couple boosters.
The soldiers are extraordinarily simple. Each is assigned a power rating from 1 to 9, and a few of them have special abilities that alter their combat abilities or those of their allies. The art on the card seems to be drawn directly from the G.I. Joe comic book, which is actually quite cool. I loved Duke saluting in front of the American flag, and Spirit Iron-Knife (my favorite American Indian Joe) looks killer coming at you with his blades.
Each card also possesses two other functions. The first is the Boost rating, which is printed upside down on the bottom of the card. Three different ratings are contained in the Boost boxes, color-coded to match the title bars of the soldiers. It should come as no surprise that the G.I. Joe colors are red, white and blue.
The sides of the cards have a small black bar containing one, two, or three little bullet icons. These are used to determine firepower in a fight. The interesting thing about these little bullets is that, like the Boost rating, they have no bearing whatsoever on the soldier whose card they adorn.
The game is ludicrously simple to play. Each player draws the top cards from his deck and lays them out face-up in two rows. These are the soldiers who will be fighting for the player, and only the special abilities and power ratings of the soldiers are relevant – the Boost rating and bullet icons are ignored once a soldier takes the field.
The game starts when one player attacks the other. In the first phase, each player selects a soldier, announces a target, and they compare power ratings. Each player also adds a card from his remaining deck, adding the Boost rating of the card to the soldier. The higher rating wins, and the lower is discarded.
Once both players have performed their one-on-one fights, the players have a firefight. The first player selects as many cards as he has heroes in play, and adds up all those bullet icons from those cards. Those bullet icons are compared to the power ratings of soldiers the player wants to kill (or knock out – nobody in G.I. Joe ever dies). Both players perform firefights, and then they return to one-on-one combats. The cycle continues until one side has no more soldiers, at which point the other player wins.
Presentation
I can find no flaw whatsoever with the presentation of the G.I. Joe TCG. The graphics are so interesting and exciting, in fact, that fans of G.I. Joe might buy the game just for the art, and the associated flood of nostalgia. The comic book art is perfectly suited, and there are plenty of action scenes to remind players of those old-school cartoons and action figures.
The layout of the cards is also excellent. The Boost ratings and bullet icons actually complement the soldiers, despite not having anything to do with their specific soldiers. The power ratings are easy to read, as are the title blocks and special abilities or flavor text. In other words, this is a very accessible, very attractive game.
Even the playmat looks great. The Cobra side is clearly delineated from the G.I. Joe side, with colorful and energetic graphics that make you want to use the mat even when you don’t have to.
Starter Set Contents
What really makes this set appeal to kids – or those who remember being kids – is the sheer quantity of cool stuff in the starter box. One top of two decks – one for Cobra, one for the Joes – and the requisite playmat, the game also includes a random booster pack. The really cool addition, however, is the Devil’s Due comic included in the box. I actually read the comic before I read the rules, just because I love G.I. Joe. It was simple and a little lame, but it was fun.
Impressions
I played my first game of the G.I. Joe TCG hoping to find a decent game and a nostalgic experience. Sadly, I had to settle for one out of two. The actual game is too simple even for kids. There is almost no strategy at all, very little decision making, and a preponderance of luck as you hope to draw the cards that can get you enough kick to beat your opponent.
Even when I designed a custom deck with a couple boosters, I found that strategy was more blunt instrument than razor’s edge. A winning deck should be made up of your highest cards – anything else, and you’re praying for a beating. The low-level Green Shirt rookies are almost completely useless, since they can be defeated with a single firefight card. The cards with high power ratings will stay around longer and kick more butt – that’s all there is to it. Even the advanced rule that sets a limit on purchasing powerful cards is a poor check on this power romp.
I played several games of G.I. Joe, hoping that somewhere I would find a strategic element. I should have known after reading the rules that there is little or no strategy in the game. However, what I had not counted on was how much fun I had.
Playing the G.I. Joe TCG is like setting up the old three-inch figs and blasting the bejeezus out of your buddy’s army. It reminded me completely of those afternoons spent reciting overused slogans and pretending to take part in wholesale bad-guy slaughter. I felt like I was a kid again, sending Roadblock after some Crimson Guard troopers with just his fists of steel. I loved blowing apart the armies and announcing with glee, ‘I just smoked Cobra Commander!’
Unfortunately, the fun was short lived. After a few games, I was just plain bored. This, too, reminded me of playing with G.I. Joes. After a couple rounds of pointless firefight, I wanted to stick a firecracker into my figures’ bellies to see how far the two halves would fly. I don’t really want to blow up the cards now – I don’t think it would be nearly as satisfying as it was to destroy those little toys. But I did tell my son that he could have all the cards, as long as he never asked me to play again.
Style: 5 – These cards are just plain neat, and damned fun to look at. It’s worth buying new boosters just to see the cool art, and to see if you can get your mitts on Destro or Cobra Commander.
Substance: 2 – This game is so ridiculously simple and nearly devoid of strategy that I couldn’t wait to stop playing and just look at the cards.
