From the nonsensical plot to the bizarre controls, Twin Strike: Operation Thunder feels thrown together.
Probably the worst part about the game are the controls. The game does offer two different control styles, both of which are equally unresponsive. The Wiimote never recognizes motion very well, causing the helicopter to do all kinds of insane twists and turns. Luckily, the game never requires any sort of major controller movement.
The missions that the game gives out are mostly based in some boring, bland landscape and involve doing something mundane. The “Twin” title comes into play when control is switched to the second helicopter that is deployed during every mission, which is forced upon the player every several minutes as no one helicopter seems to have more than one use ever. Tips are always spoken, in some kind of Sims based gibberish, and never any useful information
While the gameplay might seem slapped together and bland, the environments are not exactly up to par either. While they end up being OK at any given moment, the large emptiness and lack of any real detail at any given time make them pretty annoying and poorly designed. If the game was supposed to take place in the most boring part of the world, it does that pretty well.
Sadly, all of this also seems to carry over to the soundtrack, which could be best described as “limited”. The music is short and likes to loop repeatedly until the mission itself is completed. During the same missions when dialog is supposed to be spoken, there is some kind of weird radio squawking sound. Under the choices given for this game, it might be better to turn the sound off altogether.
Problems quickly emerge as soon as the first mission begins because the player is never given any clear indication on mission objectives. NPCs will randomly narrative some general ideas, but the overall lack of direction is frustrating and flawed.
Twin Strike: Operation Thunder is a budget game, and while that is rather nice to see in a world that thinks that 60 dollars is the correct price to charge for anything new, it doesn’t really justify the price point at all. While gas prices are lower than they have been recently, it still wouldn’t be worth the gas that it took to drive to the store to pick this one up.
This is one budget title to avoid. Twin Strike ends up feeling sloppy and rushed to the point that I don’t even know if more time could have made this any better than it was when it shipped. Because of the budget status, you should probably have some indication of what you are getting just by looking at the cover.
