\\Operation Logic Bomb
During the 1990s, there were a fair number of fast-paced overhead shooters coming out with games like Smash TV and Total Carnage leading the charge. If you went to an arcade that had one of these at the time, there’s a good chance people were playing them. When they finally got home releases a lot of people snapped up copies. Another such game in this sub genre was Operation Logic Bomb by Jaleco. This game did things a little bit differently than its arcade-y counterparts, though. Instead of giving off a speedy go-go-go like attitude, Operation Logic Bomb slowed things down as it attempted to be more of a thinking person’s overhead shooter.Trying to piece together the game’s story takes a bit of work as players are fed little bits of it over time as they come across security recordings while making their way through the game. Basically, the game takes place in and around a secret research facility where one day a bunch of voids open up and beings from another dimension appeared intent on taking over the place. Players take control of a super soldier who has been sent to retake the facility and destroy the inter-dimensional threat. It’s actually a pretty straightforward story, but how it’s told is a little bit convoluted.
The base is divided into multiple floors as well as an outside area. Players need to blast their way through each of these, sometimes restoring power to certain areas, destroying large units that allow portals to exist on that floor, and of course gunning down all sorts of inter-dimensional creatures and bosses.
Players start out with a couple of simple weapons: a rapid-fire blaster and a spread shot. However, over the course of the game they will be able to find several more and some other useful devices. These include a laser that can bounce off walls, a rocket launcher, a flamethrower, mines, and a neat little gadget that allows players to place a hologram of themselves. By the later bits of the game, one has quite the arsenal at their disposal.
As was alluded to earlier, it does feel like Operation Logic Bomb is putting more emphasis on strategy and a slower, more methodical method of traversing each level. This comes from how quickly the game ramps up the number of enemies it throws at the player. The first level or so are pretty simple as the game gives players a chance to get a feel for how everything works. Eventually, though, things do start getting hectic and it’s a lot harder to take big groups of enemies head on. As such, players need to move ahead slowly so that they don’t run into too large of a pack of enemies at once. Sometimes even this is unavoidable, so one needs to start using the environment to their advantage, backtracking to create bottlenecks, making use of their bouncing laser to shoot things around corner, cleverly placing their hologram and whatnot. The game requires a lot more careful thought in order to progress compared to something like Total Carnage where twitch gameplay reigns king.
Visually, the game is decent, but by no means the best that the SNES has to offer. Operation Logic Bomb has a reasonable number of enemies with some unusual designs, but nothing that one would consider real standouts. There’s a lot of reused assets with their colors swapped out for the level designs, but given that players spend most of the game in the same building this makes sense. The game’s visuals are by no means ugly, but they aren’t amazing either.
In the end, Operation Logic Bomb makes for an interesting change of pace from all of the arcade-inspired overhead shooters of the time. While everyone else was going with the pedal to the metal, this game took things slow and made players think first, shoot second. It’s an interesting take and a game well worth trying out for people who want something a little bit different from their overhead shooters.
- IroIro
(March 26, 2019)
SNES
Genre:
Action
Developer:
Jaleco
Publisher:
Jaleco
Released:
1993
SNES Box Art
Using the spread shot
Rockets are great too
Giant robo-crab boss