"A man and his machinegun...along with his friend and his machine gun. You get the hint."

Operation Thunderbolt is the follow up to the hit Operation Wolf, but in this little adventure, you’re no longer alone, but rather with an old war buddy. The story line of the game escapes me, but the all out action that you encounter throughout is something that you won’t easily miss from the start. Giving you several stages to choose from and several different targets, there is little here that you might miss from a first-person shooter!

The Game Play

The game play is about as straightforward as it gets, with you taking the role of a soldier who is charged with taking out the enemy army and rescuing hostages in different stages. Through the game, you’ll blow up and kill anything and everything in your path that is firing at you with absolutely no help at all from your own side! The game difficulty is limited to how fast you can dance your crosshairs around the screen, with power ups being few and far between to really do you any good.

Your main goal is to keep yourself alive through six different missions and therefore, the ability to select those missions and take a completely different path through the game really says a lot of the overall game play. If you play through on the one-player only, you’ll be on the solo mission from hell, so if you’re not ready to fire on tanks, armored soldiers and helicopters, you’ll find that the game will be fairly short in which you’re getting killed every five minutes.

The ending that you can create all depends on your ability to complete the game without screwing up different missions and in certain stages, it’s imperative that you complete these missions or end up having to go through the stage again and again until you get it right! With that being said, the control is easy enough to work with, considering that you have the same layout as you did with Operation Wolf. A machinegun and a rocket launcher is what accompanies you, both of which are easy to work with!

The Visuals

The visuals have been upgraded from the original however and you’ll find that strolling through the game is now a head on ordeal. The side-scrolling days of Operation Wolf are not in this sequel and with that being said, the environments and enemies all look and move extremely well. Explosions come to life, enemies fall before you and the scrolling on some of the enemy vehicles is pretty impressive to watch!

The Audio

The audio in the game is limited to an action sort of beat that tries to keep the pace of the game and does it in a good way. Although the audio tracks never seem to change all that much, you’ll find that the audio effects blend in and make good on the feeling of actually being in battle! There aren’t any voice-overs or anything that you may find in today’s first person shooter games, but there are enough explosions and gunfire effects to give you the feeling of war in a great way.

The Verdict

Operation Thunderbolt is an impressive sequel that spawned one more game and a few bootleg versions. Shedding the tried and true formula of side-scrolling shooting, the heads-on formula works just as well and really puts you into the game rather than making you feel like a spectator. If you’re into the older shooting games, then you’ll find this game to be right up your alley. Grab your quarters and a friend and get to work, the world is depending on you!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/02, Updated 05/26/02