Taito Legends - Operation Thunderbolt

On 04/09/2014 at 03:28 PM by KnightDriver

The 1988 cabinet for Operation Thunderbolt is a pretty common thing even today with two plastic guns as controllers. I’ve seen these types of games at several of my local movie theaters, and Dave & Busters is full of games like this. I guess people can’t resist getting their hands on a gun even if it’s a plastic one.

The game is just a FPS but with no view of your weapon, because you’re holding it as the controller. You just see the large crosshair as the environment moves independently and you just shoot at enemies as they appear. I believe this is called an on-rails shooter just like the House of the Dead games.

The events in the game are loosely based on a real hostage rescue event that took place in Lybia and Uganda in 1976, and were also made into a film by the same name. The game's location is called Kalubya, but it's clearly Lybia on the in-game map. You're mission is to rescue the American hostages on a hijacked airplane.

This port on the Taito Legends collection, on Xbox, PS2, and PC, is the most recent one but you can also play this on the SNES with the Super Scope peripheral, which would be a neat way to play it since the Taito Collection doesn’t support a gun peripheral. It was preceded by Operation Wolf and followed by Operation Wolf 3, and Operation Tiger. Only Operation Wolf is available to play (aside from on MAME) on NES, or the same version on Virtual Console. For some weird reason, the Virtual Console version doesn’t use the Wii Zapper, but the NES one supports the NES Zapper. Stupid!

I liked this game, but I wouldn’t have in the arcade. You need lots of credits to get through the mayhem and it would’ve cost a lot to finish it in the arcade. With two players though, it would’ve been fun for a little while. I looked up Dave & Busters game list to see if they had Operation Thunderbolt. They didn’t, but they have many similar games like several House of the Dead games and Razing Storm.

Here's a complete playthrough.

"Your operation was successfully completed. Now, you can go on R & R."

Super Step Contributing Writer

04/09/2014 at 03:38 PM

Oh shit, someone better tell Doc about the Libyans! I'm assuming he's the one with the gun in this.

KnightDriver

04/09/2014 at 03:46 PM

I want to say Hardy Jones is at the top and Roy Adams is the one with the mustache.

There were many of these on-rails shooters on this Taito Collection, all about hostages and terrorists and stuff. What the heck was going on in the eighties?

04/09/2014 at 03:52 PM

So Doc becomes Hardy Jones when he takes the DeLorian to the mid 70s? Damn.

04/10/2014 at 01:46 AM

And a Green Baret Uzi shooting bad ass mo fo.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

04/09/2014 at 03:53 PM

I think I've played this.

04/10/2014 at 01:40 AM

It's like so many games. I wonder why so many terrorist themed shooters in the 80s. I guess that was happening a lot.

Cary Woodham

04/09/2014 at 07:16 PM

I saw Operation Wolf in nearly every arcade I went to back in the day. Operation Thunderbolt, not so much. My favorite light gun game series is Namco's Point Blank games.

04/10/2014 at 01:49 AM

The wiki page said Operation Wolf was one of the most ported games of the time.

I'd love to play those Point Blank games. I remember seeing those gun-and-game packs all the time and never getting one.

Travis Hawks Senior Editor

04/09/2014 at 10:56 PM

Richard Pryor looks like a real badass in that art.

04/10/2014 at 01:57 AM

Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in OPERATION THUNDERBOLT.

pryorwilder

jgusw

04/10/2014 at 04:04 PM

I played this game at the arcade. It was a lot of fun. I don't think I've ever played it any other way. Playing it without the gun wouldn't be the same.

04/11/2014 at 02:42 AM

I didn't even think about that when I played it. Then looking it up, I realized I should have a gun periferal but this collection doesn't support one. That's an oversight since there are several games like this on Taito Legends.

SanAndreas

04/10/2014 at 11:45 PM

I remember playing this game back in the 80s. I think there was some real-life hostage crisis in the Middle East at the time it came out. Can't remember, my poor old memory is a bit fuzzy.

04/11/2014 at 03:19 AM

There must've been because there are several games just like this on the Taito Legends collection that all came out in the mid to late 80s all of them about terrorists and commandos and stuff. They must've thought that's the kind of game people in NA wanted to play.

C.S.3590SquadLeader

04/14/2014 at 12:38 PM

As bad as I am at most arcade games, I'm the worst at light gun games. I'd still try it out if I had some money to burn.

04/15/2014 at 03:24 PM

I like them better on console so I can have infinite credits. In real life, I don't get very far. They make them impossibly hard.

NSonic79

05/22/2014 at 03:19 PM

Also played this game at pizza hut in my youth! The ending scene always got me. He looked like he was suffering a heart attack than a bullet to the chest.

05/23/2014 at 01:48 AM

Like he was getting repeatedly TASERed.

PixlBit