City Interactive is a budget
shooter warehouse of a developer. Their 2008
lineup includes Operation Thunderstorm, SAS:
Secure Tomorrow, Battlestrike: Force Of Resistance,
Code of Honor 2, Sniper - Art of Victory and
The Royal Marines Commando. I've already reviewed
SAS and I'll be playing Royal Marines next.
The others I'm skipping; the quality is variable.
Operation Thunderstorm started
badly. To sum it up in one sentence and punchline,
this game would have been good... if it was
RELEASED IN THE 1990's! Although as the game
progressed (quickly) some of the levels get
better than the first couple. But the graphics
here aren't great. As crappy as SAS looked with
it's 2004 F.E.A.R. engine, this game is actually
a little worse, although it's using the same
engine. It's cramped, nothing but endless corridors
and small winding rooms and at times is quite
maze-like, saved only by it's small on-screen
map and forward arrow highlight where to go.
But ignoring the bad graphics,
I actually had a lot of fun in this game. The
enemies are all the same, even the two bosses
appear to be just normal enemies with a different
skin. They go down quick. Once you get a few
good guns and start walking around with your
scope out, it's a blast. A great, old skool
shooter feel with no story, just picking off
enemies over and over.
You can't expect perfection
with a game that's only 2gb installed, and it's
over in well under three hours. City Interactive
should probably just give this game out for
free now as a digital download to garner attention
for their future titles, but if you can find
a copy to download then it's probably more fun
than wasting two hours watching the latest Hollywood
blockbuster. It's not really worth any money
though.
