Review for Operation: Tango
Note: Since time of writing, a free DLC Challenge Mode has been released, introducing a whole new play area and ten trials to complete with new puzzles and robots. This review is based solely on the original version of the game.
One’s an athletic operative in the field. One’s a top hacker behind a desk. Two players take on the roles of two very different secret agents to defend the not-too-distant future of 2038 from the mysterious Cypher and his wave of cyberattacks in Clever Plays’ asymmetrical spy thriller Operation: Tango. This first-person co-op adventure sports plenty of exciting multiplayer gameplay moments, some under the pressure of a time deadline and some more relaxed. While the tension peaks too early, leaving the later assignments and subsequent ending feeling anticlimactic, the standalone missions themselves are true standouts of joint superspy fun.
You and a partner assume the identities of Angel, an African American field agent with an augmented reality monocle, big hair, and mad skills in infiltration and digital impersonation; and Alistair B. Fleming, a hacker with a walking cane, crazy red facial hair, and impressive computer abilities. The pair of you work for the secret Tango organization devoted to world peace and receive your mission briefings from Anna Lundqvist, a woman who, with her headset and mic, looks like she’d be right at home in a call center. You won’t learn much more about them than that, as the game keeps the focus on individual missions and the co-op gameplay that comes with them rather than developing a cohesive story or delving into their relationship at all.
What little plot exists is doled out in the mission briefings from Anna, which come in the form of stylish hand-painted graphic-novel-like still panels with some camera movement to make them more dynamic. Briefings live up to their billing, being brief in nature and detailing only the high-level objectives. Only once the missions get underway does Anna give more detailed guidance through remote communications.
The tale follows Angel and Alistair across six missions as they try to track down and apprehend Cypher, a skilled digital terrorist. While there is an overarching narrative of discovering Cypher’s identity, objectives and whereabouts, not much time is spent on this. Instead, the story is very much pushed to the background in favour of keeping the gameplay front and center. While this keeps things moving at a good pace, it also means that the plot doesn’t feel like it’s building toward anything, or that you’re all that hot on the heels of Cypher himself.
Unlike other co-op adventures, like the We Were Here series or Tick Tock: A Tale for Two, in which both players have the same capabilities, Operation: Tango features asymmetric gameplay. Playing the field agent is a very different experience than playing the hacker. It’s nice to have this differentiation as each player has something unique to contribute to the missions, though since both players continually need their own tasks to keep them occupied, I suspect this accounts for the low overall mission count.
As the field agent, Angel is the one who physically has to sneak into remote facilities, using a standard first-person free-roaming movement scheme. She’s typically looking for hard evidence as to Cypher’s location and plans, or is onsite to unlock access to a building’s isolated computer systems so Alistair can hack them. Angel has a number of particularly enjoyable moments, such as one where she’s descending an elevator shaft with a cable harness, Mission: Impossible style, and has to avoid various security measures on the way down. On another occasion she has the opportunity to wander around a train car, looking for one of Cypher’s contacts, getting close enough to all the other passengers so she can spy on their phone apps to determine the correct person.
Back at the office, Alistair is set up with all his hi-tech equipment. Naturally, his job is to hack into the computer systems of the places Angel visits to help her progress. As he’s the computer guy, most of his interactions involve dealing with mouse-driven user interfaces to navigate through the various digital systems available to him. This may involve forging a new digital identity for Angel so she can pass a security check-in, or monitoring automated guard drones on patrol to tell Angel when it’s safe to sprint through a secure location. Just because he’s offsite doesn’t mean that Alistair is free from exposure, as his digital infiltration can be detected, forcing him to deal with counter hack attacks such as a mass of pop-up ads swarming across his screen.
Beyond Angel and Alistair wandering around buildings or navigating file hierarchies, respectively, each mission involves a variety of tasks that the two protagonists must do either individually or, more frequently, together. There are too many such activities to go into them all in detail, but there are a few highlights. For example, Angel may reach a room that appears to be empty, but Alistair can see hidden threats and safe pathways lit up on his computer screens and must describe to Angel how to proceed. Or Angel may discover patterns or codes that need to be conveyed to Alistair for him to unlock increased access to the machines he’s hacking. Then there are the multiple homages to Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, where Angel must describe a bomb or other mechanical device to Alistair so that he can consult a database of instructions to properly direct Angel through the correct manipulation of the machine. For instance, Angel may have to describe the number of batteries a device has for Alistair to look up an appropriate passcode to access additional modules on the device.
Some puzzles must be manipulated by both players simultaneously. In one case, the goal is to move a green dot across a computer field with a number of moving red security lines to reach a safe destination. The trick here is that one person controls up and down movement while the other controls left and right, requiring a good degree of coordination. In other situations, a grid representing a digital lock is displayed on-screen with various rectangular blocks that need to be moved to create a clear path for a specific key block. The impeding rectangles are colour coded, so Angel can move one set of blocks and Alistair the other. Rather than a standard slider puzzle, here the key block can’t touch any of the movable blocks or the attempted hack will fail. That’s not easy, as releasing a coloured block causes it to slowly slide back to its original position, which typically cuts off the path for the key. Again, careful coordination is required to succeed.
Throughout the six chapters, it is possible to get caught or otherwise cause the mission to end in disaster, such as Angel being spotted by security drones. In these instances, the game provides a quick retry option, which rolls things back to before the fatal mistake. With failure a possibility but not particularly punishing, it’s a nice way to raise the tension while being able to quickly try again without having to replay an entire mission.
Despite its seeming similarity to fast-paced spy thrillers, most of the game is rather sedate, allowing players to set their own pace. Only occasionally does any sort of timed element become a factor for added excitement. With Angel aboard a high-speed commuter train, Cypher remotely sabotages the engine so that it begins to accelerate uncontrollably. Angel must reach the front of the train, where the two players will coordinate efforts in passing information back and forth on how to repair the compromised systems and bring the train to a halt. This is a multi-step, six-stage procedure with an imposed time limit of only a few minutes. Fortunately, with the completion of each stage, additional time is added to the clock.
No strangers to more action-oriented fare, my friend and I particularly enjoyed these timed sequences. The more relaxed demands of much of the gameplay are fine, but Operation: Tango is at its best when the pressure is on and both partners are getting anxious and talking a mile a minute. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fourth mission, in which Alistair must perform a digital dive across the dark net.
Here Alistair’s view changes from the usual computer interfaces to one that makes it seem like he is hurtling down a digital roadway in first-person perspective. Along this information superhighway, he has the ability to switch between three different lanes. Meanwhile, Angel is monitoring the situation at Tango headquarters, where she is presented with a schematic map of Alistair’s progress. Alistair can’t look behind him, nor can he control his speed. Instead, as he’s propelled forward automatically, only Angel can spot the threats approaching Alistair and must warn him to move to one lane or another to avoid them. She must also direct him to specific lanes to pass through different parts of his journey successfully. Failing to do so does not cause an immediate mission failure, but it damages Angel’s own computer connections, drawing her attention away from Alistair and requiring her to correct things on her end.
While there’s no specific time limit for this chapter, the fact that Alistair is always moving forward keeps the tension high. My friend and I agreed that this was hands-down the best mission of the six. It was the one mission where we really had to think on our feet the whole time and keep up a good flow of communication, giving it an exciting and climactic feel where the two operatives had to absolutely be in sync with each other. Returning to two more normally paced missions afterward felt like a come-down and caused us to walk away feeling that the game had ended prematurely. We had been anticipating another high-intensity mission for the climax, and while the closing moments of the last mission do involve a specifically timed section, it just wasn’t the same.
Overall, the game's six missions took us a little under three hours to complete. Not a lot of time, but a lot of fun and a lot of laughs as we worked our way through the challenges. Between missions, a world map allows you to retry any previously played missions, the main incentive being to experience them again from the other perspective. We would have loved to see a bonus challenge mode to play each mission again with time limits. The world map also allows players to swap characters going forward without having to restart the game. My friend and I alternated every mission so we'd get a sense of what each role was like. Adding another little bit of replay value, minor elements in each mission are randomized. For instance, in the mission on the train, Angel must identify the target by scanning the apps on passengers' mobile devices. Though the overall objectives and main story beats remain the same, the location of the target and the specific apps are changed in each run.
Visually the game uses a faceted, low-polygon 3D look with basic shapes and bright colours presenting a slick, glossy spy world. Coupled with the upbeat brassy/jazzy musical tracks, the aesthetic evokes the classic Sean Connery era of James Bond, or the sleek and sexy television series The Avengers with John Steed and Emma Peel instead of more modern, grittier fare like Daniel Craig’s Bond or the Bourne franchise. Spy work should be fun!
The only voiced character is Angel and Alistair’s boss Anna. It’s the players, of course, who supply most of the protagonists’ dialog though in-game voice chat. Communication is a little complicated right at the beginning, as for one player to join another, the host must give the client player a randomly generated passcode. As this is done before the connection between the two players is established, it can't be conveyed by voice chat, so a third-party solution is needed to send the code if sharing the game remotely. Strangely, my friend and I experienced an issue when we first connected, as I could hear him on the initial character selection screen, but he couldn’t hear me until we had actually entered the first mission. From that point out, the in-game voice chat was fine and didn’t lag at all for us.
One last welcome note on the multiplayer side: only one player is required to purchase the game on Steam. The other player can download a free Friend Pass, which allows them to join a hosting player. It's a nice touch that generally isn't seen with co-op games but really should be.
Operation: Tango embraces the enjoyable side of being a spy. With an agent on the ground and an eye in the sky, there's plenty of opportunity for both physical and digital espionage. Both players need to work together and communication becomes even more paramount when the stakes are raised in the excellent timed sequences. Although the plot is thin and the gameplay peaks too soon, the joy of working through the missions cooperatively wins out. I hope this isn’t the last we see of Angel and Alistair, as my friend and I look forward to the opportunity to take up their roles once more. After all, as anyone who watches any spy movies knows, the world always needs saving another day!
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