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October 15th, 2016 
Carl Williams 
Full Motion Video (FMV) is not all actors in, somewhat, scant clothing running from blood suckers ala Night Trap. Or getting called names by your boss like in Sewer Shark. No, sometimes Full Motion Video games are just cartoons similar to what we enjoyed on Saturday mornings in the 80’s (man, who misses THOSE days?). Cobra Command is one such animated game that reminds me of G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K . – at least the action parts of those shows. You are in charge of taking down the enemy forces while site seeing key parts of the world. That flyby of the Statue of Liberty is pretty cool.
Not traditional games
As mentioned already, but in case you are new to Full Motion Video games, these games are basically on rails. Everything happens at the same point every time you play. If you think about it, that Goomba in Super Mario doesn’t randomly appear when starting out (and that power mushroom is in the same block each time too). The problem is more pronounced with Full Motion Video games though as you have no control to stop or move (kind of like modern platforms and the “endless runner”).
Laser disc wasn’t just for movies
Cobra Command is a port of an earlier arcade laser disc game that, obviously, featured more animation and detail than the Sega CD port could muster. It also didn’t cost several thousand dollars to enjoy in your home either.
Cobra Command featured familiar animation style
If you are a fan of animation like G.I. Joe then you will probably get a kick out of Cobra Command. I personally enjoy Full Motion Video games and wish they would make a return sooner than later. Imagine with the power of modern hardware what could be done- we could probably see near instant reaction from the video and with that more options for gamers to effect the story.
Want to fly the unfriendly skies of Cobra Command? There were a few ports available over the years and eBay has most of them.
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