Cobra Triangle

About Cobra Triangle

Cobra Triangle (1989) is Rare's isometric NES speedboat game, mixing races, rescues, bomb runs and vehicular combat across 25 stages, from the creators of R.C. Pro-Am.

Cobra Triangle in Depth

The player races a cannon-equipped speedboat against other watercraft across 25 stages of rising difficulty, with objectives that vary from winning races to saving swimmers and defusing bombs, and some levels end in boss fights. In races the boat must avoid the riverbank and obstacles mid-river while beating a timer; upstream races add logs and whirlpools. The boat can attack rivals, launch into the air from ramps and collect power-ups that upgrade its weapons and speed.

In bomb-defusing stages the player moves four protected bombs to a detonation site, and in another mode must destroy rogue boats before they drag swimmers to the edge of a lake, returning any dragged halfway back to the centre by hand; failure costs a life. It is shown from a 3D isometric perspective, scrolling automatically as the boat moves. Reviewers noted its likeness to R.C. Pro-Am in camera angle and play, and AllGame's Brett Alan Weiss placed it in the lineage of 1982's River Raid, though with an isometric view and more emphasis on racing than combat.

Making Cobra Triangle

Rare, which grew out of the Stampers' secretive Ultimate Play the Game, developed it, and Nintendo released it for the NES in July 1989. Computer and Video Games' Jaz Rignall praised its "convincing" graphics, smooth play and "addictive" replay value, and the magazine recommended it. IGN and GamesRadar later ranked it among the top NES games, GamesRadar saying it aged well and typified NES-era beauty.