Operation: Tango Review – A Cooperative Spy Thriller
Intercepting nefarious hackers, attending clandestine meetings, and taking down corrupt corporations are all in a day’s work for super spies. In Operation: Tango, you and a friend will have to fill those same shoes in this stylish asymmetrical co-operative adventure from the studio Clever Plays.
Set in the near-ish future, Operation: Tango puts layers into one of two roles, Alastair, the hacker with legendary facial hair, or Angel, the fierce and fashionable field agent. Even though you are completing the same mission, you will have different tasks to undertake and will get unique cutscenes from your character’s perspective depending on which character you play,. This is by far one of the coolest aspects of Operation: Tango, and it adds a nice incentive to replay the game from the other character’s view.
Each level comes off almost as an escape room-lite that I never felt took too long. There are enough puzzles to keep you pleasantly occupied for 20 – 30 minutes each. The scenarios you encounter are varied enough to keep you on your toes and excited for what’s next. You will see repeat styles of puzzles now and then, but they are usually smaller “filler” puzzles, such as putting the ball in the hole with each player controlling either vertical or horizontal movement; that you will do with your partner as you work to get to the significant events of each level.
These bombastic events feel like they are straight out of a spy movie. In one case, you and your partner must sneak and hack your way through encrypted servers, while the other is trying to avoid security drones. In the very next level, you will be working together to turn off laser systems so the agent can repel down a ventilation shaft while using her blowtorch to get past security. You will even have to work together to stop an out-of-control speeding train from crashing. Most of these more sophisticated set-piece moments of the stages require a lot of coordination between you and your friend and can get tense as the timer ticks down. I felt a few instances lingered on a bit too long and could benefit from one or two fewer cycles, but overall they are still the highlights of each stage.
I was pleasantly surprised with how much care was put into making both players’ experiences unique. Playing as the hacker and seeing your agent walking around on the security cameras and sending them secret messages is neat while exploring the environments to find little easter eggs or knick-knacks up as the agent gives you a better look at the world of Operation: Tango.The puzzles and tasks also provide just enough challenge to cause you and your friend to have to work together while not being overly aggravating, and coming up with ways to describe to the other player what you need them to do is part of the fun. And if you do fail a task, you are quickly back in the action, but if you are having issues, you can use a handy “hints” option to help you through.
With such a focus on co-op gameplay that requires a lot of communication, Operation: Tango doesn’t include any sort of matchmaking to let you play with random folks. That said, Clever Plays has come up with, pardon the pun, a clever solution to make it as enticing and easy as possible to play with your friends, regardless of what platform they prefer to play on! In addition to the cross-play, only one person actually has to have bought the game, and everyone else can simply download the free “Free Pass” version and join in! The game will also take care of the voice chat too so that those friends on different platforms can still speak to each other since constant communication is a must-have to succeed. To be clear, this review was done via two PC players with the full versions, so how successful these features have been implemented is a mystery at the time of writing.
My time with Operation: Tango sneaking around the globe and taking down nefarious parties was a joy. Connecting with my buddy was pretty painless. There were a few hiccups, like a couple of situations where the next level didn’t unlock on my end, or one of us would freeze and be locked out of prompts that barred us from progressing, forcing us to start a level over. Overall though, it all felt great to play.
I love the vibrant and visually shocking aesthetic in this game, focusing on oranges and blues. The character and world designs provide a significant amount of detail and a look into the world they are traveling around to save. The art team has done a fantastic job to give Operation: Tango a feel all its own and deserves a lot of praise.
With the world slowly starting to get back to normal, I highly recommend having a friend over for some drinks and playing through this. There may not be couch co-op, but with the extreme flexibility that Clever Plays has given people in how they want to enjoy Operation: Tango, you could easily have a person playing on a computer while another is on a console, or on two consoles. For only $19.99 (or for free if you have PlayStation+), you can have a great adventure with this striking new IP.
Operation: Tango was a game that piqued my interest when I first saw it, and after playing it, I can safely say that I can’t wait to go back. Clever Plays has created what I hope will be a great new franchise of cooperative adventures, and I anxiously await my next mission.
Operation: Tango is now available on PC, PlayStation 4/5 , Xbox One / X/S.
This game was reviewed with two players on PC with review codes provided by the game’s publisher.
Born and raised in the mitten state, Scott has been around video games for his entire life. A lover of most genres of video games (he is not one for the racing or sports games), he is especially fond of RPGs and Fighting games. Scott is far from a one-trick nerd though also having interests involving card games, such as Magic, board games, and Dungeons and Dragons. Outside of game related items, he finds giant robots (Gundam, Transformers, anything that combines into bigger robots) to be the shit , enjoys the occasional anime, and has a fondness for epic fantasy novels. The nerd is strong with this one.
Each level comes off almost as an escape room-lite that I never felt took too long. There are enough puzzles to keep you pleasantly occupied for 20 – 30 minutes each. The scenarios you encounter are varied enough to keep you on your toes and excited for what’s next. You will see repeat styles of puzzles now and then, but they are usually smaller “filler” puzzles, such as putting the ball in the hole with each player controlling either vertical or horizontal movement; that you will do with your partner as you work to get to the significant events of each level.
These bombastic events feel like they are straight out of a spy movie. In one case, you and your partner must sneak and hack your way through encrypted servers, while the other is trying to avoid security drones. In the very next level, you will be working together to turn off laser systems so the agent can repel down a ventilation shaft while using her blowtorch to get past security. You will even have to work together to stop an out-of-control speeding train from crashing. Most of these more sophisticated set-piece moments of the stages require a lot of coordination between you and your friend and can get tense as the timer ticks down. I felt a few instances lingered on a bit too long and could benefit from one or two fewer cycles, but overall they are still the highlights of each stage.
Each level comes off almost as an escape room-lite that I never felt took too long. There are enough puzzles to keep you pleasantly occupied for 20 – 30 minutes each. The scenarios you encounter are varied enough to keep you on your toes and excited for what’s next. You will see repeat styles of puzzles now and then, but they are usually smaller “filler” puzzles, such as putting the ball in the hole with each player controlling either vertical or horizontal movement; that you will do with your partner as you work to get to the significant events of each level.
These bombastic events feel like they are straight out of a spy movie. In one case, you and your partner must sneak and hack your way through encrypted servers, while the other is trying to avoid security drones. In the very next level, you will be working together to turn off laser systems so the agent can repel down a ventilation shaft while using her blowtorch to get past security. You will even have to work together to stop an out-of-control speeding train from crashing. Most of these more sophisticated set-piece moments of the stages require a lot of coordination between you and your friend and can get tense as the timer ticks down. I felt a few instances lingered on a bit too long and could benefit from one or two fewer cycles, but overall they are still the highlights of each stage.
The puzzles and tasks also provide just enough challenge to cause you and your friend to have to work together while not being overly aggravating, and coming up with ways to describe to the other player what you need them to do is part of the fun. And if you do fail a task, you are quickly back in the action, but if you are having issues, you can use a handy “hints” option to help you through.
With such a focus on co-op gameplay that requires a lot of communication, Operation: Tango doesn’t include any sort of matchmaking to let you play with random folks. That said, Clever Plays has come up with, pardon the pun, a clever solution to make it as enticing and easy as possible to play with your friends, regardless of what platform they prefer to play on! In addition to the cross-play, only one person actually has to have bought the game, and everyone else can simply download the free “Free Pass” version and join in! The game will also take care of the voice chat too so that those friends on different platforms can still speak to each other since constant communication is a must-have to succeed. To be clear, this review was done via two PC players with the full versions, so how successful these features have been implemented is a mystery at the time of writing.
My time with Operation: Tango sneaking around the globe and taking down nefarious parties was a joy. Connecting with my buddy was pretty painless. There were a few hiccups, like a couple of situations where the next level didn’t unlock on my end, or one of us would freeze and be locked out of prompts that barred us from progressing, forcing us to start a level over. Overall though, it all felt great to play.
I love the vibrant and visually shocking aesthetic in this game, focusing on oranges and blues. The character and world designs provide a significant amount of detail and a look into the world they are traveling around to save. The art team has done a fantastic job to give Operation: Tango a feel all its own and deserves a lot of praise.
