Review: The Wii light-gun shooter that’s as fun as it is accurate.
You thought terrorists were scary? Try Target: Terror for Wii. Its ten stages of awful light-gun shooting gameplay will give you nightmares for weeks. Even if you’re armed with the compatible Wii Zapper accessory for more realistic gun action, you may turn that plastic gun on your Wii console out of frustrating and sheer boredom. This is one of the worst games for Wii and, for a system with a lot of shovelware, that’s saying a whole lot.
Target: Terror begins with a cheesy voice sample that says “Let’s Rock”, but it certainly doesn’t rock. The audio sounds like it was recorded on a 90s Yak Bak. Likewise, all of the on-screen enemies are chrome keyed videos of YouTube-quality “actors” placed on top of plain-looking and non-destructible graphic environments. Whoever was in charge of the green screen effects didn’t do a good job at merging the pixilated actors into their video game background.
The actors themselves don’t help too much, either. Their exaggerated movements and uncharacteristic attire (they all look like burglars with big sunglasses and AK-47s) make them seem less like terrorists and more like B-movie cast members. It’s striking to see how dissimilar the game’s box art appears with its intimidating terrorists compared to the laughable and hokey-looking in-game “terrorists.”
Even worse than this game’s style choices is the gameplay. It tries to mimic fellow arcade originals Police Training and Time Crisis by having you empty a round of bullets on enemies and then having to shoot off-screen to reload. Unfortunately, after this in this arcade-to-Wii port has you reload away from the TV, the reticle is slow to return to the screen and there’s no way to adjust the settings of your crosshair’s speed. The lack of options lets the terrorists win, literally.
