Says Eugene Jarvis, in response to complaints about this game being
"offensive" by some pussies after the events of 9/11. I suppose
the national anthem could have been stuck in there, but otherwise he's
right on. Personally, I don't see what the fuss is all about either.
You're fighting the terrorists here. If the game was about taking
over embassies and planting bombs in schools to bring down order, then
by all means object. We probably won't listen anyway, but hey its justified.
Play It:
For the arcade and the Wii. By the way, there's a Target: Terror Gold
in the arcade. I've never played the original, but I believe the Gold
version adds bonus rooms.
Story:
There is no real overstory. You just go around to various locations
and stop the terrorists from doing whatever it is that they're doing.
The missions aren't linked or anything. All right, enough here.
Graphics:
With flaming bodies, standing skeletons, and flying body parts, I'm
just gonna say the graphics are good. The Wii version takes a hit here.
The graphics look about the same to the best of my memory, but the Wii
version is choppy as hell. Missed frames of animation are common, so
enemies will literally just appear out of nowhere or hit you without
even you seeing them swing.
Sound:
Plenty of screaming. The music is pretty good. It's not very memorable,
but it gets the job done. There's not enough dialog in the game to make
it a quality worth grading on. Overall, I say the audio is good.
Difficulty:
Pretty hard. Many enemies shoot you the second the appear. This makes
the pressure to shoot anything that appears much greater. A bit too
unfair in my opinion. Try beating this on one credit. The Wii version
is MUCH harder, for the all the wrong reasons.
Enjoyment:
This game has a few things going for it. It has 10 different levels
of varying lengths, and you can choose them in any order you like except
for the last one, although in the Wii version the first 9 stages are
divided into 3 'levels' though you can play ANY stage once you beat
the game. 2 people can play, but if you're playing alone, a double-gun
mode (Justice Mode) is available. Playing with 2 guns without having
to pay for the second is awesome. There's also a wide array of special
powerups. In addition, there are enough scoring bonuses and awards to
give point freaks a boner. Oh, and this game was made by the same brain
behind the original NARC. Not that that should really make you decide
anything, I'm just chucking out trivia.
This game is something of a hybrid of Maximum Force and Virtua Cop,
although not nearly on the level of either. Some levels are reminiscent
of MF's, but there's just not enough going on in the levels. Sure, there's
lobbies on fire and cars overturned, but that's all pre-you. There's
little in the way of background objects exploding, cars smashing, and
whatnot. Enemies pretty much just jump out and shoot; nothing more.
As with Area 51 and MF, there are a few bonus levels, though not as
many as the aforementioned games. Apparently, the bonus rooms are NOT
in the original version (I haven't played it so I don't know for sure),
just Gold. If so, the original version loses a good chunk of appeal.
Unfortunately, the Wii port is very poor. It wasn't a great game
in the first place, but at least it was competently made, and the Wii
version takes that away from it. Aside from the choppiness, the hit
detection, yes the HIT DETECTION in a lightgun game, is very suspect.
Even when I have my aiming crosshair (not optional) placed dead-center
on a man's chest, I sometimes fire and fail to hit him. And even if
I do, many times they don't even get hit in the right place. You can
have the cursor on a guy's head and end up scoring a nutshot. Projectiles
can be damn near impossible to hit. There's no ability to recalibrate
the Wiimote, but I don't think that would have made a difference. The
Wii port may in fact be the worst lightgun game EVER. I've never seen
a lightgun game with broken gameplay before. I DID notice I'd often
bust nutshots in the arcade too without even trying, but I never had
any problem hitting what I was aiming at.
Replay Value:
Well, there's a bunch of bonus rooms (well depending on your version)
for you to find. Otherwise, there's nothing.
Rant Session (minor spoilers):
I'm always for fighting terrorism, so I decided to seek out my nearest
Target: Terror machine. What exactly is this "Target: Terror"?
I don't know. It's either a lame-name terrorist plan that TARGETs to
strike TERROR into the hearts of innocents, or it's a lame-name counter-terrorist
operation that Targets TERRORism.
Anyway, the general mode of operation is like I expected. If you kill
a terrorist, he'll just come back to life. Therefore, you need to continually
kill them and keep them from earning enough money to buy sniper rifles.
This game also features everything they do in real life: bombing things,
holding hostages, assassinating VIP's, and having straight-up deathmatches
with CT's (I'm not sure how those are organized; they just sorta happen.)
The terrorist's first plan is an attack on an airport. The Raw News
woman describes it as a "Terrorist blitzkrieg". NOW that's
the kind of excitement I love to see in my news. Indeed, it certainly
was a well-planned blitzkrieg. The terrorists prepared for their attack
by hiding rifles, rocket launchers, and flamethrowers inside security
monitors, barrels, and panes of glass (I wanna know how they pulled
that one off.) However, they're kinda slacking on the 'rounding up hostages
for holding' part, since they are walking all over the damn airport.
Anyway, their plans for the airport are a bit sketchy. They don't seem
to be making demands so much as just waiting for the CT's to arrive.
A newsreport says that a chopper is missing; I wonder if I'll encounter
it sometime soon? The final leg of the mission takes place in the control
tower. Once at the top, an attack helicopter flies into view, which
I guess is the missing chopper. I didn't know it was standard for commercial
airports to keep a squadron of Apaches on the premises. Fortunately,
the pilot tries to be some kind of hot-shit and actually fires the missiles
DIRECTLY AT YOU. If he had simply tried hitting the base of the tower
and making it fall, he probably would have won.
The next mission is an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge and yes, Raw
News is all over this one too. The terrorists have planted bombs on
the bridge, blockaded the roadway, and spilled a huge shipment of barrels
all over the fucking place. You land on the top of it and make your
way down. Plenty of innocent people are walking around the inside of
the tower, in what I would expect to be a restricted area. No wonder
the terrorists chose this place. After clearing it out, you end up on
an oil tanker heading for the bridge... Wait, they want to bomb the
bridge AND crash a tanker into it? Is this their Plan B? And wouldn't
you know it, but there's plenty of civilians on board. Either the workers
have absolutely no dress code, or oil tankers are now also used as cruiseships.
At this point, it turns out your agency commander is actually working
for the other side, and this was just a diversion. Now all the teams
are stranded elsewhere as the terrorists hit a nuclear plant. In desperation,
you hitch a ride on the RN chopper in exchange for one huge story. Just
kidding. You only wish this plot was that complicated, although this
would certainly make more sense later on.
Anyway, the attack on a nuclear plant! Not a very clandestine one as
there a a bunch of SCUD launchers just sitting in the middle of the
base perimeter. Once inside, we find out that the core is going critical
thanks to a live news broadcast from inside the... Whoa whoa whoa. Who's
giving this bitch this information? Why was she let inside this facility?
Does Top Secret mean anything to the government? Even more scary is
the security force. This is it...
So after all 3 locations have been secured, the terrorists strike at their final target: the... airport? I thought we already cleared this shit. Shticky wickets! Raw News reports a terrorist blitzkrieg, all flights being shut down and... hey, this is the SAME EXACT newscast you gave us on the first level. Lazy asses. They've snatched a plane and are making their escape just as you arrive. They plan to pilot the plane into either the Washington Memorial or the White House. I'm not sure which because at least 2 sources tell different stories. It's either one or the other. Not that hard, guys. Oh Jarvis, and you wondered why people might find this game offensive. Back to the game:You manage to enter thanks to an open rear hatch or something.
Terrorist 1: "Hey, we're going to take off now. Should we leave the cargo ramp open?"
Terrorist 2: "Oh fucks yeah!"
You make your way through the cargo area and up into the passenger area. Interestingly, enemies use throwing knives instead of dynamite, rockets, or grenades. I guess that makes sense in a plane, except for the fact that we totally blew the shit out of the cargo hold and there's still bullets flying all over the plane. Yeah, that's totally realistic. Finally, it's a showdown between the final terrorist and you.
He's got a hostage (the pilot) and a bomb detonator. What do you do? Shoot him in the head? No! He's bought a helmet, so a headshot is ineffective. You only have 1 shot too. Why? I have no clue. If you shoot him, you just stand there like a dumbass and watch as the guy gets back up, laughs, then detonates the bomb. The solution is hitting the detonator. You then kick him out of the plane (I guess you guys moved out of the cockpit and towards a door at some point) and into one of the wing's engines, which most likely destroys it. Way to go, douchebag! You've saved the plane, that is if the pilot can keep it from crashing now! Onto the ending where the president says something to you, but good luck understanding him in your average arcade!
Bottom Line:
A somewhat amusing but overall kinda dull and unremarkable shooter, especially if playing vanilla Target: Terror. Worth a few dollars at an arcade, but NOT worth any for a truly horrific Wii port. I am dead serious. I am easy to please, and I am super unsatisfied with the Wii version. SUPER UNSATISFIED! Mr. Jarvis would also be unsatisfied to have his game replicated in this manner.