OPERATION THUNDERBOLT (GX4000)
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Publisher: Ocean.
Developer: Taito. Released: 1990. Genre: Gallery Shooter. Other versions: SNES; AST; C64. Posted 25th November 2012. By Chris Weatherley © 2012 |
In the late 1980s, when the golden era of the arcade machine was at its pinnacle, one of the most popular titles was the machine gun sporting cabinet of Operation Wolf. To use a gun, a large gun, and blast away baddies to their grim deaths was a thrill for many a spotty teenager. The following year brought an even better addition to the attraction, you could partner with your mate and go terrorist killing together. This game, like the first, came with a hardcore military name too; Operation Thunderbolt. Amstrad were keen on porting the most popular arcade games that were around at the time, so to release this along with Atari’s Klax seemed like a good scheme to kick start the sales of the GX4000. As we know, the machine’s success never came, and this game is a perfect example of one of the primary reasons why this happened.
Operation Thunderbolt is a first-person shooting gallery game, with the objective to kill as many bad guys as possible throughout each of the stages. Your view is fixed as the screen scrolls either forwards or pans to the sides, your movement dictated by the game while you control your gun sight. It’s a simple concept, but worked well in the arcades and made some very decent conversions to the home computers of the day. The GX4000 port is not one of the best, in fact it is decidedly average, and that’s being rather munificent. I’ll start with the positives first, because I don’t want it to seem I’m laying into this unjustly, but it does aggravate me considerably. Graphically it’s a mixed bag. The large static sprites are well-drawn and colourful, as are close-ups of aircraft and incoming missiles/grenades etc. In all fairness, it’s coloured well on the whole. It’s got a tidy but sparse title screen with pleasant music, clear layout and the same levels and settings as the coin-op original. There are some nice explosion effects, and strangely the animation of a stray ginger cat running amidst the gunfire is excellent. Unfortunately, apart from a minor extension of the colour range, this is identical to the CPC version, and that’s where my frustration comes from.
Operation Thunderbolt is a first-person shooting gallery game, with the objective to kill as many bad guys as possible throughout each of the stages. Your view is fixed as the screen scrolls either forwards or pans to the sides, your movement dictated by the game while you control your gun sight. It’s a simple concept, but worked well in the arcades and made some very decent conversions to the home computers of the day. The GX4000 port is not one of the best, in fact it is decidedly average, and that’s being rather munificent. I’ll start with the positives first, because I don’t want it to seem I’m laying into this unjustly, but it does aggravate me considerably. Graphically it’s a mixed bag. The large static sprites are well-drawn and colourful, as are close-ups of aircraft and incoming missiles/grenades etc. In all fairness, it’s coloured well on the whole. It’s got a tidy but sparse title screen with pleasant music, clear layout and the same levels and settings as the coin-op original. There are some nice explosion effects, and strangely the animation of a stray ginger cat running amidst the gunfire is excellent. Unfortunately, apart from a minor extension of the colour range, this is identical to the CPC version, and that’s where my frustration comes from.
The Mardi Gras goes downhill quickly after the last of the outfits are taken
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Santa's grotto was looking a little sinister in 1990
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As proved with titles like Burnin’ Rubber and Robocop 2, the GX4000 could produce a much better quality of game than the CPC; the improvements that could have been made to Operation Thunderbolt would have not been all that difficult to pull off either. Focusing on the graphics, the first negative is that there is no title image. Even the CPC version had this. Not important to the gameplay of course, but would have been a nice touch for the presentation. Secondly, unlike the arcade and other ports, there are no in-game stills or links between levels; again this would make for a much better look. The third point is the most important; the game’s forward scrolling is absolutely dreadful. It’s not smooth in the slightest, making the background and supporting side graphics jerk and flicker, bringing unwanted attention to the blocky characteristics of some secondary sprites. This maybe forgiven if the animation of the advancing enemies wasn’t so poorly executed either, particularly to the ground troops and oncoming vehicles. It’s all just too haphazard and distracting for the eyes, and makes the game difficult to play with any passion. It’s a shame, because the speed and movement of the gun curser is fine, as is the general pace of the game. This can be appreciated more in the side-scrolling levels, when the movement is a lot smoother.
Again with the sound and music, it’s all the same as the CPC original. Most of the SFX are acceptable, but the horrible dull bleep of an enemy hit is grating and irksome, and it is almost a constant throughout. This is due to the fact that there seems to be no adjustment to the amount of baddies on screen from the two-player mode. There are far too many, making things cluttered, unstructured and at times completely random. You just don’t know what to aim for as a priority, and as a result you are always taking damage. This also has the adverse effect of causing slowdown at many points in the game. If a second player is introduced, it makes the game far more enjoyable even with the slowdown. The music on the title screen isn’t bad, and the short musical inserts between levels are equal to this, but it could have been a lot better, especially if the arcade’s sampled speech was included.
Again with the sound and music, it’s all the same as the CPC original. Most of the SFX are acceptable, but the horrible dull bleep of an enemy hit is grating and irksome, and it is almost a constant throughout. This is due to the fact that there seems to be no adjustment to the amount of baddies on screen from the two-player mode. There are far too many, making things cluttered, unstructured and at times completely random. You just don’t know what to aim for as a priority, and as a result you are always taking damage. This also has the adverse effect of causing slowdown at many points in the game. If a second player is introduced, it makes the game far more enjoyable even with the slowdown. The music on the title screen isn’t bad, and the short musical inserts between levels are equal to this, but it could have been a lot better, especially if the arcade’s sampled speech was included.
The ski-jump is rudely interrupted by a gunfight
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Two from an exceptionally long, dress-coordinated line of terrorist brothers
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The problems with the graphics are the foremost reason why the gameplay is reduced to being so sub-standard and awkward, because judging by the responsiveness, layout and the two-player option, it’s not too shoddy at all. The gun sight movement is fine for the most part, even though it’s more or less invisible without the target sight pick up, and the frequency of health and weapons to collect is good. This helps it along a bit, but with only five stages and the apparent capability of unlimited continues, if you can bear with the graphics, it’s not massively difficult to reach the final level, which suddenly takes an upward slide and is very difficult, again overly crowded with enemy attacks. At some points, the entire screen is full up, all simultaneously firing at you with that tell-tale slowdown. No chance!
So I now I get back to the original point about my frustration with this game. If Ocean had been given the opportunity to re-vamp it from its CPC counterpart, I imagine the result would have been much much better. The scrolling could have been a whole lot smoother, as demonstrated by titles like Burnin’ Rubber and even Chase HQ on the CPC. The GX’s hardware would have easily achieved this. It also would have sharpened the sprites, animated them better, and put in more details from the arcade version such as the level change screens and sampled speech. Hell, even the Spectrum could produce speech sounds adequately, such as in its own port of Klax. Adjustments to the code commanding the number of sprites on screen would have also been a massive improvement, but instead we are left with a mediocre conversion which simply does not do the console justice. Like many of the games on the GX4000, this had the potential, but was ultimately let down by its creators. Operation Thunderbolt highlights this in a more disappointing and obvious fashion than some of the other GX titles, and means that, though it isn’t the worst game on the platform, it’s certainly the most infuriating. Operation failed!
So I now I get back to the original point about my frustration with this game. If Ocean had been given the opportunity to re-vamp it from its CPC counterpart, I imagine the result would have been much much better. The scrolling could have been a whole lot smoother, as demonstrated by titles like Burnin’ Rubber and even Chase HQ on the CPC. The GX’s hardware would have easily achieved this. It also would have sharpened the sprites, animated them better, and put in more details from the arcade version such as the level change screens and sampled speech. Hell, even the Spectrum could produce speech sounds adequately, such as in its own port of Klax. Adjustments to the code commanding the number of sprites on screen would have also been a massive improvement, but instead we are left with a mediocre conversion which simply does not do the console justice. Like many of the games on the GX4000, this had the potential, but was ultimately let down by its creators. Operation Thunderbolt highlights this in a more disappointing and obvious fashion than some of the other GX titles, and means that, though it isn’t the worst game on the platform, it’s certainly the most infuriating. Operation failed!
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VERDICT
Visual: 5/10
Audio: 6/10 Gameplay: 6/10 Longevity: 5/10 OVERALL: 5/10 |