Scratches a particularly annoying itch left from Call of Duty 4.
So I'm doing my usual circuit through Best Buy not too long ago and come across AC-130 Operation Devastation from Valusoft for $19.99. The graphics on the front of the box are extremely cheesy and almost made me put it back on the shelf. Opening the front cover revealed the game I had been longing to play. Now these are hard times and $20 is still $20 but the gaping hole left by CoD4 made me get it anyway.
So the menu is fairly simple. No options to change resolutions, no AA, nothing except otions to play windowed/full-screen and to turn high quality effects on or off.
The gameplay is fairly close to CoD4. The graphics are greatly inferior to Cod4 but you tend to forgive that given that your view is always through a grainy gun camera. The same issues appear such as the limits of where your gun can aim given the orientation of the aircraft. I find it hard to believe the gunner can't tell the pilot to turn and provide a better angle on the target. I can tell some of the ground geometry isn't quite right, when a large shell explodes near a target they go unscathed. This is particularly noticeable with mortar teams.
One thing I found neat was that the AI will attempt to lay down and play dead when you're using the Vulcan cannon. I can say that it definitely scratches the itch for more C-130 action, but the game has many problems such as graphics and units with way too much health. The SAM launches start to get annoying and unrealistic. It's definitely worth $9.99 but not $20. Thanks for trying ValuSoft!