Hands on with laserdisc retro epic Cobra Command on iPhone

The iPhone itself hasn’t been quite the revolution in Japan as it has over here, but a lot of the old coin-op companies have clearly seen the potential to revive their arcade classics through Apple’s device.

G-Mode, which owns many of the awesome Data East properties, was therefore very keen for Australian developer Revolutionary Concept to resurrect its laserdisc anime extravaganza Cobra Command from 1984, and we just got our hands on it.

Let’s take it for a spin.

Cobra Command was one of those terribly clever laserdisc games that required you to interact with pre-drawn animations by flicking a joystick or hitting a button at just the right moment.

This one goes deeper than the rather superficial interaction of games like Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair, however. In Cobra Command you take control of a gunship’s weaponry, and must shoot down the terrorists seen in the animated clips.

The method of doing this is quite simple, once you analyse it, but it still looks remarkably ingenious on face value, even after 25 years. The level of interactivity feels great as timed reticles appear over sections of the animation that you need to target and shoot. Take too long and the enemy helicopter, car or whatever, takes you out first.

Should this happen, the animation switches to one of many clips of your helicopter blowing up, or crashing into scenery that matches that particular section of the film.

Get your shots off first using the laser guns or missiles and the animation keeps on playing, with some great explosions and action as the enemies are eliminated and the next ones hove into view.

But fighting is only one aspect of Cobra Command’s interactivity. At key moments you also need to take control of the gunship itself, which follows its route automatically the rest of the time. These moments tend to arrive during more intense bouts of action, when the helicopter needs to dive under an exploding terrorist, or bank sharply to avoid a building.

This is handled using the accelerometer - tilting the handset to simulate the yoke, although it doesn’t necessarily let up on the shooting action as you do so.

The settings allow you to invert the Y axis, if that’s your preference in flight sims, though it sometimes feels as though you need to tip the handset a little too far to register your movements (to the point that you strain to see the screen).

Naturally, being Japanese made, the animation is quite superb - far in advance of the cartoons we saw over here in the 80s (except perhaps for Thundercats, but that was Japanese too, which proves the point).

It’s an intensive and unforgiving game, but as you settle into the control system you really begin to appreciate the level of design that’s gone into Cobra Command’s animation.

Game and art combined

Five minutes in the cockpit and you forget you're watching a pre-rendered animation. The seamless way in which it cuts away from the main film when you take a missile up the... exhaust pipe, or it blends into the next scene is impressively transparent. And there's no shortage of locations (or levels, in game terminology) for you to fly through.

New York, the Grand Canyon, Easter Island, Rome, the Himalayas and a host of other exciting settings are unlocked as you progress. There does feel to be a significant amount of repetition as you try to make the next checkpoint, but they do come along quite regularly and you feel as though you’ve really achieved something when you get there.

The way in which a laserdisc has been adapted into a video game, then evolved again into an iPhone application is impressive from beginning to end, and I dare to say the quicker video handling and slicker controls actually make Cobra Command work better as an iPhone title than a coin-op.

Taking the great sound effects, voice prompts (“Turn left! LEFT!”) and wonderfully cheesy '80s action soundtrack into account and you’ve got one of the most inventive and unique experiences seen on the App Store.

I won’t pretend that it doesn’t take some effort and no small amount of perseverance to get into the concept of a laserdisc game without the laserdisc, but it really yields fruit once you’re comfortable with how the whole thing operates.

The high octane action and constantly changing perspective allowed by the use of pre-rendered animation adds volumes of depth to the game.

It’ll be very interesting to see how Cobra Command performs among the casual iPhone fraternity, but hardcore retro fans should begin polishing their old 10p pieces.