Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. (Arcade)
Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. looks like its angling for a bit more realism than your typical arcade light gun shooter. From its camo covered task force treating their missions professionally to the cabinet’s light guns even asking you to nestle the gun stock against your shoulder rather than allowing a more casual grip, it feels like it’s trying to be closer to actual military action… at least up until you are filling a man with a gas mask and a machete with clips off ammo and fighting a giant man with a chaingun mounted on his arm. However, this proves to be a fairly nice mix all things considered, the regular missions and enemy clearing fitting the more grounded theme while the bosses can be more extravagant to give you a more engaging fight.
Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. is an update of the 2011 arcade title Operation G.H.O.S.T. with most of the changes being rather minor. Some bugs were fixed, some reasonable ideas like punishing you for friendly fire were added, and a new time attack mode was integrated where you move away from the game’s mission and survival focus to instead try to quickly take out as many enemies as you can. For the regular play though, you’ll find yourself controlling members of Global Humanitarian Operations & Special Tactics, G.H.O.S.T. often split into Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie teams that allow them to approach their objectives from different angles. This can lead to missions changing on the fly as you shift perspective, moving from on-the-ground gunmen to something like a support team firing from a helicopter, and some missions even allow you to choose your approach like deciding whether to save hostages or clear out enemy forces with the other team picking up the leftover option.
A terrorist group has launched attacks on various locations, the main story having five available missions to tackle that are all fairly lengthy. However, you’ll only be able to play three of them during a run, the player always needing to tackle the Express mission aboard a runaway train as well as the final mission where you try to take down the terrorist leader before he can unleash a virus on the world, but you will be asked to pick one of three other available missions. The Office attack where you infiltrate a pair of skyscrapers and Cargo mission aboard a ship are fairly similar in focusing on clearing often tight quarters, but Desert is a more unique mission where you you’re out on the road and firing upon vehicles and terrorists on motorcycles. The missions being mutually exclusive does mean you’ll have to start new runs if you want to see the others, but the three mission stretch at least is closer to half an hour if you stick it out so trying to clear it in an arcade setting won’t drag too long. The variety across the missions is fairly sound as well, Office having an accuracy focused sniper section for example, Express asks you to try and nail a single shot on a terrorist holding a hostage, and teamwork can sometimes be a helpful tool like being able to order an ally to toss a grenade. There are even area scans that help you see enemies before they pop out from cover so it’s less likely you’ll be caught off-guard, Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. trying to make missions about more than shooting your way through waves of enemies.
The cabinet, available in a sit down deluxe arrangement and one for standing play, allows for two players to play together, its light gun rifles held double-handed with that stock arrangement mentioned earlier. With a button for extra actions like activating gadgets or issuing orders to other soldiers, these guns also come with an extra feature that the game could do with drawing more attention to. Besides special moments like the sniper section or the Desert mission where you use a mounted gun, your weapon will be the same automatic across the stages but you get to choose its firing method. Semi-auto makes the gun fire once per trigger pull, the game’s pace meaning this might struggle to keep up but since headshots often instantly take out terrorists, it might fit a player who is going for high score in time attack. The 3-shot burst is likely the better option for reliable work and still some rapidity, but there is a full auto setting that comes with a unique drawback. The semi-auto and burstfire options draw from an unlimited ammunition pool, and while you do need to reload, you won’t ever run out of shots. Full auto though will use up its own reserve of ammo and the player will need to shoot objects to try and find refills, the fastest and most effective firing option kept in check by this design choice. The slow reloads will sting no matter what weapon you use though and more importantly, if you do die and choose to continue, it feels unwieldy to do so, the start button on the cabinet requiring you to move out of the optimal firing position which can leave you vulnerable until you settle back into the proper firing posture.
The regular enemies of Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. will fire on you fairly quickly once they spot you, but whether that’s something you need to be immediately worried about can vary. Regular gunmen will eventually land their shots if left alone, but ones that are more pressing will have a countdown appear overhead, a red number counting down to the point they’ll hurt you. Most of these will start at 3, but some ambush attackers will be right at 1 as soon as they appear or may even come in for a knife swing with no countdown to score a bit of a cheap hit. The slow reload can be particularly painful here, especially when you’re reviving and the reload is part of it, although Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. does use adaptive difficulty to some degree. Some targets deal more damage, attack more quickly, or might do something like throw grenades that are harder to hit if you’ve survived for a while, and while a subtle touch of this can be found in many arcade titles, it can feel like the countdown timers are being betrayed when the game gets a little overzealous in trying to grab credits. This mostly won’t harm the regular missions too much, the difficulty balance effective and special segments help shake things up, but the final mission, beyond having a boss gauntlet to put the squeeze on you, also has a lot more cases of enemies who attack far too quickly to try and run through some of your credits. It’s a disappointing imbalance after the game had done good work with its somewhat immersive S.W.A.T. action, although the final boss is a surprisingly fair and fast fight to compensate. Perhaps amusingly though, then you’re asked to perform one last action that can then determine if you actually save the day fully or not for a last little point where the game can earn a little ire for its rough last mission.
Most bosses in Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. are actually fairly well-designed and the boss gauntlet might be one of the better parts of the last mission in terms of the power balance. Many bosses will have moments where you need to cancel out their attack by unloading on a weak spot quickly enough. You might need to shoot knives or grenades out of the air in a test of reflexes and reload timing, but the patterns are easy enough to pick up on so that you’re able to at least attempt what you’re meant to do with timing and accuracy being the deciding factors most of all. Ambush trickery is saved mostly for the grunts as well as their slightly sturdier variants, although that can sour the experience some when it feels like losses aren’t from the more legitimate challenges and instead some means of trying to keep you paying to play.
THE VERDICT: Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. does a pretty good job mixing military squad tactics into a light gun shooter, swapping between teams giving you different angles and ways to approach a mission while also encouraging quick clean kills rather than constant rapid fire. The bosses, despite breaking away from that more realistic approach, are one of the best realized parts with reasonable attack patterns to make their fights feel fair. However, the regular foes lean a bit heavily on ambush tactics and the gun handling can get in the way of addressing the surprise attacks, and with the last mission cranking up the cheap shots, Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. loses some of its thrills at the point you’d hope it would be at its best.
And so, I give Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. for arcade machines…
An OKAY rating. It’s a little funny that a game that often tries to give you the feeling of guiding a careful spec ops team through situations so often takes away that sense of control. You can have the area scan, the team members clearing rooms carefully, and even the special actions like instructing an ally to use a special weapon or provide cover fire, but sometimes a guy pops out with a knife a bit too quickly to respond to and that’s what undoes this unit of trained soldiers. It’s bit easier to accept in the four regular missions when it occurs because it happens quickly and you often get a break before the game pushes it again, but the final mission does start to wear away some of the game’s thrills as it feels like your team has experienced an unusual drop in competency. Naturally, an arcade machine does need to make the player pay at points, but it felt like there were effective systems in place already. The countdowns can give an immediate sense of pressure, especially when there are multiple enemies with them or special ones who might take more shots to take down if you can’t land a clean head shot kill. The bosses have patterns to learn that help you start avoiding damage over the fight’s course that don’t feel the need to pull out cheap tricks to keep you on your toes. The gun even having the various firing options, while perhaps in need of more emphasis so the player can make better use of them, can give you some control over your effectiveness during tough moments. The Desert mission feels a bit out of place for moving away from familiar systems, but generally Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. does approach its idea of a more military minded light gun shooter well even if it can’t maintain the balance of making it feel like you need to play professionally to succeed.
While other light gun shooters might draw attention by letting you blast zombies and dinosaurs, Target Bravo: Operation G.H.O.S.T. gives you something a little closer to life while also whipping out a few less realistic scenarios to ensure there’s still some eye-catching action against unbelievable foes. It might need yet another update for Operation G.H.O.S.T. to achieve the right balance in terms of difficulty and fairness, but it still might be worth a look if you want an arcade shooter that isn’t too outlandish with the types of threats you need to take down.