Bottom of the Barrel (no.3): Operation Thunderbolt

It's been awhile since I'd last done a rant on games I've despised so, seeing as I have little to talk about, now may be as good time as any.

Today I want to talk about Rail Shooters. Can't say I'm a big fan of them - you see my problem is that usually there's so much coming for the player that there's little fighting chance left for the player. Thus, the player soaks up bullets he can't dodge and facing odds that they don't have a hope in hell of beating. Now whilst there may be some amusement value - I myself played, and enjoyed the Terminator 2 arcade game back in the day - Rail Shooters aren't really my thing. No, give me first- person shooters any day - at least they have the option of ducking out of fire. 

Which brings me to Operation Wolf - a milestone in Rail Shooters. Released in the arcades, it played by presenting the player with a gun and, through the player's perspective, produced a whole lot of army soldiers to gun down. It came across as being like the action movies of it's time and, through mission descriptions, evoked the sense of a Special Forces operation. The game was a big enough deal to get converted to nearly every home computers and consoles. So a sequel eventually arrived: Operation Thunderbolt!

I myself never played Operation Wolf but I did play Operation Thunderbolt on my trusty Commodore 64. For the purposes of today's post however I present the Amiga version:



One look at the video reveals everything I despise about the Rail Shooter. There's no way to dodge the bullets so all you can do is soak them up and watch helplessly as your health decreases. The levels are long and tedious and thus become less a challenge than an endurance test. There's so much coming at you all at once that the difficulty is ramped up to the level of 'impossible'. Indeed, the only thing that player would need to beat this game would be luck and luck shouldn't have to play a part in beating games. Matters aren't helped with the absurd length of the plane in the final mission and a narrator who sounds like Duffman.

So playing Operation Thunderbolt was enough to put me off Rail Shooters. Okay so there've been some I've enjoyed in the form of Virtua Cop, Gunblade and Hous eof the Dead Overkill but all in all, Operation Thundebrolt made me approahc the genre with a degree of caution.
And I hope it feels damn proud of itself >:(