Operation Thunderbolt

Literally arcade perfect all the way through with the coin-op's attract mode and the level completion screens. There's even a Spectrum – i.e. mass attack – emulator hidden away in the game! Effectively they ARE the graphics from the coin-op but unbelievably they've been improved upon! A host of near perfect samples together with a moody title tune and enjoyable inter-level music. Instantly playable even if it didn't have the Thunderbolt name to attract the gamesplayer. The more you play it the better it gets and boy, is there a challenge in this game! We're not talking an Amiga conversion of the coin-op here; we're talking the coin-op in an Amiga!

Natürlich ist Operation Thunderbolt trotzdem absolut ungeeignet für Leute, die Kriegsspiele verabscheuen, denn an Brutalität wurde wirklich nicht gespart. Wer dagegen seine Aggressionen am liebsten an Terroristen und Miezekatzen ausläßt, wird seine helle Freude haben – zumindest bis die BPS wider zur „Operation Index“ schreitet! Und das kann in diesem Fall nicht sehr lange dauern...

Perhaps too hard for its own good, but at under a tenner it's perfect for relieving those violent outbursts.

Every so often Ocean produce a storming arcade conversion. Operation Thunderbolt was just that. Released in the late eighties, it received heaps of favourable reviews and sold by the lorry load.

Your controls are sometimes your worst enemy because the targeting cursor moves slowly, occasionally leaving you open to enemy shots. Fortunately, the colorful, detailed backgrounds and large sprites make you keep trying. The sounds are also strong, as when you hear the clink of incoming knife blades. This Operation is a success, generating plenty of shootin' thrills for intermediate soldiers. You'll get a charge out of this Thunderbolt.

Das Spiel ist technisch sauber programmiert, die meisten Elemente des Original-Automaten sind vorhanden. Trotzdem ballert man nur recht lustlos in der Gegend herum, das Spielprinzip gibt auf die Dauer nicht viel her.

Wer in der Spielhalle am Automaten klebte, wird auch mit der Heimcomputer-Umsetzung rundherum zufrieden sein. Alle anderen sollten "Operation Thunderbolt" mit Vorsicht genießen.

The jury's out on this one. When you're playing it alone, it get's pretty boring after a while but with two players it's slightly more entertaining. It's full of death and violence, which is always a plus, but it just doesn't hold up to games like Doom or Alien: The Gun, or Revolution X or even to the Terminator 2 adaptation for the SNES, where you can feel the carnage. Operation Thunderbolt is really nothing special.

Utterly mindless genocidal slaughterfest; perhaps the best Op Wolf game to date. More of the coin-op's appeal is down to the cabinet-mounted Uzi than you might think, leaving the Amiga version somewhat 'flat'. Everything you could expect a conversion of Operation Thunderbolt to be.