AC-130: Operation Devastation Demo

When it comes to war, technology has evolved tremendously over the last century, given the fact that it is now possible to strike any location around the world using remote-controlled drones. If that doesn’t sound impressive, you only need to remember that cavalry was still used in the first World War, which means that we’ve gone from horseback armies to drone strikes in the span of a century.

AC-130: Operation Devastation is an action game in which you play the role of a gunner in charge of the weapons aboard the Lockheed AC-130. In case you are not familiar with it, the aircraft in question is a gunship equipped with all sorts of cannons and missiles, which means that it’s capable of doing a lot of damage to everything that stands in its way. However, its greatest strength is the fact that it flies very high above the ground, making it that much more difficult for the enemy to target it.

The game is more of a shooter than an actual simulator, although the ballistics somewhat resemble reality, at least vaguely. Even if you do not have to account for wind speed or anything like that, you at least have to approximate movement and try to shoot where the enemy is going to be after a few seconds. Other than that, you can basically just keep the finger on the trigger and hope for the best.

There are some interesting ideas at work in the game as well, such as the fact that you do not always need to shoot every enemy vehicle individually to get rid of them. Instead, you can easily just destroy a bridge and render them unable to reach their target, although that’s not always an option. Speaking of which, the action takes place in a variety of locations around the world, including Vietnam and Iraq.

The plane is equipped with three different weapons, just like the real one. Each weapon has a different caliber, ranging from small 20mm shells to deal with infantry, all the way to 105mm shells that are much more effective against large targets. It is your job to choose the right caliber for every situation, although you cannot go wrong by simply blowing everything up with the largest missiles on board, as long as you can deal with the long reload times.

While AC-130: Operation Devastation is not exactly a brilliant concept, the underlying concept is fun enough to provide you with a good time throughout the campaign. As long as you can get over the poor graphics, the game can prove to be a fun distraction.