Introduction

GI Joe the Atlantis Factor was a 2D action platformer developed by KID (Kindle Imagine Develop, who later did Ever 17: The Out of Infinity, the Memories Off series and Low G Man, among others), published by Capcom, and released in March 1992. So why haven't most people played or heard of it, outside a Nintendo Power feature the same year?


Three main reasons.

1. Like the previous game, it was only released in North America, so that limits the audience right off the bat. Their ad campaign was also pretty limited, as so far I can only find one print ad which ran in comics and game magazines, and searching on Youtube has given me a lovely result of Diddly/Squat. I am aware that for the most part individual Nintendo games didn't get very many "featured" ads the way some SNES games did, but this was towards the end of the console's life cycle, so they really should have at least done one.

2. The DiC cartoon had ended just two months previous. So except for the diehard fans, collectors, and readers of the monthly comic, Joe was starting to fade from the collective consciousness. As well, the DiC cartoon being somewhat more "kiddy" in comparison to the Marvel/Sunbow series really didn't help the brand as a whole for being taken seriously.

3. The Real American Hero brand was on a slow fade out by this point (it ended in 1994, in fact), especially since war was a good bit less popular in the early 90s than it was in the early 80s, when Larry Hama, a Vietnam veteran and comic book writer, helped come up with it in the first place. People were less keen on soldiers and wars after Desert Shield/Storm, and the Cold War ending certainly contributed.


So why are we going through this game? Because it was fun as hell, dammit, and the developer figured out what they did wrong in the first game. Auto-scrolling boss fight(s) with insta-death bottomless pits, and you're forced to take the heaviest and lowest jumping Joe as your team leader? Passwords that ignore what weapon and life levels your team members are at? Nope, we're having none of that garbage here, thank you.

Since this isn't the longest game ever (a couple of hours if you're really good), I'll also be doing File Dossiers on six characters and/or vehicles per video, as Mr. Hama did come up with some pretty interesting stuff. SkippyGranola has been kind enough to join me on this journey, and Voidburger was quite kind and helped me by doing some editing for me, since I didn't quite bring myself to get the software and figure out the process on my own. So let's move out! YO JOE!

Episodes

Episode 01 Bring Along a Wet Suit (Initial editing on this episode done by the lovely Voidburger)
Episode 02 Roadblock, When Did You Get Here?
Episode 03 Solving Snake Eyes' Sorrows
Episode 04 Shooting Up is a definite survival skill (Initial editing on this one done by Voidburger)
Episode 05 Who misses Maze levels?
Episode 06 You mean I have to fight Cobra Commander again? (And once more, the lovely and talented VB helped me out with the special effects)

File Dossiers:
01 - Stalker through Road Pig
02 - Wet-Suit through Storm Shadow
03 - Skystorm through Alley Viper
04 - Firefly through Techno-Viper
05 - T.A.R.G.A.T. through Laser-Viper
06 - Overkill through Cobra Commander

Bonus Updates:
Snake-Eyes and shopping on his own, or, why you don't leave a Ninja on their own for too long
Snake-Eyes' greatest hits
Bonus video 1 - Storm Shadow's Revenge
Bonus video 2 - The Many Deaths of Cobra Commander