You know, if an entire country can collapse from one guy setting off an EMP, I think your society might just be a lost cause.
Co-op gaming has been going interesting places lately. On the one hand, you have It Takes Two surpassing all odds to take Game of the Year 2021. On the other, you have Halo Infinite going out of its way to utterly fail to live up to previous entries by launching without co-op, and abandoning all plans for split-screen. Chances are, if there's a big co-op game that launches these days, it's a horde shooter. Operation Tango seeks to veer more towards the adventure-style gameplay seen in games like It Takes Two (as well as its Friend Pass system), but arguably veers closer to the We Were Here series. But what sets it apart from the rest is the asymmetrical gameplay that both players sit through.
One player picks the role of agent, while the other fills the role of the hacker. Agents do all the field work, while the hacker supports them from elsewhere. Both players have to communicate constantly to relay each others information to each other, as well as collaborate in several minigames. It's a really great foundation, and the early missions do a great job at introducing the concept before the later missions get really creative. Certain sections do feel a fair bit derivative of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, but the story elements that run alongside it keep the pace going strong.
Graphics are stylised to a degree, but it's certainly not a strong draw for the game by any means. It's cartoony, but not strikingly cel-shaded or anything along those lines. Music felt very much in-the-background and didn't grab me at any point, but it's acceptable, cliche espionage music, riffing off of the classic Bond vibes.
Sadly, Tango drops the ball in many places - though I think the games strengths outweigh the flaws, it's by a narrow margin. The final mission is just pure ass, opening with a mediocre stealth sequence that is incredibly brief, before going to a large, uninteresting environment with poorly explained mechanics that led to a lot of frustration for both me and the hacker guiding me. This then led to another, disastorous stealth sequence. Control-wise, you can only walk or run - no crouching or jumping. They're hardly necessary, but when confronted with instant fail stealth sequences the stiff controls become very noticeable.
Additionally, the game's just really short. Doing all the main story missions left it at just under 4 hours, and from what I understand the puzzle solutions either don't change or have very little variance, so there's zero replay value. There are post-game challenges, and I might amend the review if and when I check them out, but I just want a damn break after that last mission.
Most baffling to me was the performance. I'm not sure if this is just a me thing given I've seen no other complaints, but - this is one of the worst PC ports I've ever seen. There are no graphic options, like, legitimately none other than resolution and "low graphics mode". Despite this, the game inexplicably turns my PC up to 90 degrees Celsius (and based on my limited knowledge of Fahrenheit, that's about 520,000 degrees or something) and runs like utter shit. Doom 2016 is less demanding than this game.
Altogether, this game is in a weird spot for me. It has style and charm, but being so short and unreplayable leaves it feeling low-value. I almost definitely wouldn't have bought the game were it not for being in a Humble Bundle, and while the Friend Pass is a nice and welcome inclusion, there are a LOT of things that hold this game back. I wish the developers all the best if they choose to make a follow up - hopefully the first thing they tackle is basic PC optimisation.
Co-op gaming has been going interesting places lately. On the one hand, you have It Takes Two surpassing all odds to take Game of the Year 2021. On the other, you have Halo Infinite going out of its way to utterly fail to live up to previous entries by launching without co-op, and abandoning all plans for split-screen. Chances are, if there's a big co-op game that launches these days, it's a horde shooter. Operation Tango seeks to veer more towards the adventure-style gameplay seen in games like It Takes Two (as well as its Friend Pass system), but arguably veers closer to the We Were Here series. But what sets it apart from the rest is the asymmetrical gameplay that both players sit through.
One player picks the role of agent, while the other fills the role of the hacker. Agents do all the field work, while the hacker supports them from elsewhere. Both players have to communicate constantly to relay each others information to each other, as well as collaborate in several minigames. It's a really great foundation, and the early missions do a great job at introducing the concept before the later missions get really creative. Certain sections do feel a fair bit derivative of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, but the story elements that run alongside it keep the pace going strong.
Graphics are stylised to a degree, but it's certainly not a strong draw for the game by any means. It's cartoony, but not strikingly cel-shaded or anything along those lines. Music felt very much in-the-background and didn't grab me at any point, but it's acceptable, cliche espionage music, riffing off of the classic Bond vibes.
Sadly, Tango drops the ball in many places - though I think the games strengths outweigh the flaws, it's by a narrow margin. The final mission is just pure ass, opening with a mediocre stealth sequence that is incredibly brief, before going to a large, uninteresting environment with poorly explained mechanics that led to a lot of frustration for both me and the hacker guiding me. This then led to another, disastorous stealth sequence. Control-wise, you can only walk or run - no crouching or jumping. They're hardly necessary, but when confronted with instant fail stealth sequences the stiff controls become very noticeable.
Additionally, the game's just really short. Doing all the main story missions left it at just under 4 hours, and from what I understand the puzzle solutions either don't change or have very little variance, so there's zero replay value. There are post-game challenges, and I might amend the review if and when I check them out, but I just want a damn break after that last mission.
Most baffling to me was the performance. I'm not sure if this is just a me thing given I've seen no other complaints, but - this is one of the worst PC ports I've ever seen. There are no graphic options, like, legitimately none other than resolution and "low graphics mode". Despite this, the game inexplicably turns my PC up to 90 degrees Celsius (and based on my limited knowledge of Fahrenheit, that's about 520,000 degrees or something) and runs like utter shit. Doom 2016 is less demanding than this game.
Altogether, this game is in a weird spot for me. It has style and charm, but being so short and unreplayable leaves it feeling low-value. I almost definitely wouldn't have bought the game were it not for being in a Humble Bundle, and while the Friend Pass is a nice and welcome inclusion, there are a LOT of things that hold this game back. I wish the developers all the best if they choose to make a follow up - hopefully the first thing they tackle is basic PC optimisation.