As I have made quite abundantly clear with my reviews, I enjoy quite a lot of Namco’s classic arcade games. Call me old fashioned, but there is just something about them that makes them so memorable and fun in my eyes, with unbeatable classics like Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug, along with other lesser known hits, like Splatterhouse, Mappy, and Rally X. However, of course, not every gaming company can have a perfect roster of titles. There will always be one in there that is the outlier of the group, one that you would never choose if paired alongside all of the other releases. For me, that outlier would be the original Rolling Thunder.
Speaking as someone who just only recently played this game for the very first time, I didn’t really enjoy my time with it that much. I can see what they were going for here (somewhat), and I guess it does have some good qualities about it, but for the most part, it is a repetitive, lackluster experience that would definitely make me wanna play something else from their classic arcade lineup.
The story is the same as practically every game of the era, except this time there is a terrorist organization involved, meaning it is two stories of that era combined into one, the graphics are good for an arcade game, although something feels kinda off about it when looking back, the music is pretty good, but not that memorable to me, the control is pretty solid all around, and the gameplay is pretty standard for games of this era, but it pales in comparison to plenty of other titles.
The game is a 2D side scrolling shooter, where you take control of the lankiest-looking secret agent I have ever seen, you move left to right, shooting enemies, getting more bullets and weapons from special doors labeled as such, and avoiding dangerous hazards along the way. That’s pretty much all that you get from this game, which leads into one of the main problems with the game: it gets extremely repetitive really quickly. You will pretty much be doing this for the entire game, using the same two weapons, those being a pistol and a machine gun, each with limited ammunition, and you’ll be fighting off practically the same enemies over and over again, which consists mainly of the most colorful KKK-looking people in an arcade game, until you reach the end of the stage. There is almost nothing in the game that changes things up from this, other than some different types of enemies, and some different terrain to go through, which doesn’t matter when you always approach the problem with the same solution.
Now, I have no problem when it comes to repetitive games, as I love games like Mega Man and Mario, and those games are extremely repetitive as well, but what makes them more bearable in this department is that there is at least something that keeps the game somewhat interesting the more you keep going, such as different bosses and new powers you get along the way. In this game, you are just constantly shooting the same enemies with the same weapons over and over and over again, and granted, there is one boss at the end of the game, but he just sort of runs around back and forth until you shoot him enough times, and that’s it. Not really much of a boss fight.
And speaking of the end of the game, in order to reach the end of the game, you have to play through the game twice. Oh goody, my FAVORITE trope of old school games, wasting my time! To be fair, the stages do change somewhat on the second go-around, there are more enemies, and it calls itself "Story 2", but really, you are just playing through the game again for no reason other then to squeeze more money out of poor souls that played it back in the day.
Which leads fittingly to my final criticism of the game: that good ol' arcade syndrome is here, and in full force. The game will throw enemies at you constantly, especially on the second go-round, and as you would expect, it is pretty annoying to deal with. This is especially annoying since your moveset is limited, to where you can only shoot in front of you, while standing up or crouching, and again, this wouldn't be a problem in other games like Mega Man, where the game was built around this limitation in versatility. However, in this game, enemies have very unpredictable movement patterns, so you never really know how to properly deal with them a lot. For example, there are these bat enemies that are introduced in Stage 3 that hover above you for a bit and then swoop down to damage you, but you aren't always sure which direction they will come from, and when they will swoop down, and by the time you do figure it out, you're already dead.
Now, I will say, there are some things that I like about this game, such as the fact that you can hop between multiple parts of the level and hide in doors and behind crates when dealing with enemies, with these mechanics going on to inspire other games like Shinobi and Time Crisis. That's pretty cool, and I also appreciate how you have a health bar, unlike a lot of other arcade games, where you take one hit and die instantly. Granted, in this game, you mainly take TWO hits before dying, but hey, a little help is better then no help at all. But that's really about it, everything else has been done significantly better in plenty of other games.
Overall, while it does have some good ideas, and it certainly isn't a terrible game, it was just way too repetitive and lackluster for me to properly give a recommendation for, and there are plenty of other Namco arcade titles you would have a much better time with rather then this. I just hope that the sequels take what was set up in this game and improve upon it in some way, but until I get to them, I can only hope.
Game #154
Speaking as someone who just only recently played this game for the very first time, I didn’t really enjoy my time with it that much. I can see what they were going for here (somewhat), and I guess it does have some good qualities about it, but for the most part, it is a repetitive, lackluster experience that would definitely make me wanna play something else from their classic arcade lineup.
The story is the same as practically every game of the era, except this time there is a terrorist organization involved, meaning it is two stories of that era combined into one, the graphics are good for an arcade game, although something feels kinda off about it when looking back, the music is pretty good, but not that memorable to me, the control is pretty solid all around, and the gameplay is pretty standard for games of this era, but it pales in comparison to plenty of other titles.
The game is a 2D side scrolling shooter, where you take control of the lankiest-looking secret agent I have ever seen, you move left to right, shooting enemies, getting more bullets and weapons from special doors labeled as such, and avoiding dangerous hazards along the way. That’s pretty much all that you get from this game, which leads into one of the main problems with the game: it gets extremely repetitive really quickly. You will pretty much be doing this for the entire game, using the same two weapons, those being a pistol and a machine gun, each with limited ammunition, and you’ll be fighting off practically the same enemies over and over again, which consists mainly of the most colorful KKK-looking people in an arcade game, until you reach the end of the stage. There is almost nothing in the game that changes things up from this, other than some different types of enemies, and some different terrain to go through, which doesn’t matter when you always approach the problem with the same solution.
Now, I have no problem when it comes to repetitive games, as I love games like Mega Man and Mario, and those games are extremely repetitive as well, but what makes them more bearable in this department is that there is at least something that keeps the game somewhat interesting the more you keep going, such as different bosses and new powers you get along the way. In this game, you are just constantly shooting the same enemies with the same weapons over and over and over again, and granted, there is one boss at the end of the game, but he just sort of runs around back and forth until you shoot him enough times, and that’s it. Not really much of a boss fight.
And speaking of the end of the game, in order to reach the end of the game, you have to play through the game twice. Oh goody, my FAVORITE trope of old school games, wasting my time! To be fair, the stages do change somewhat on the second go-around, there are more enemies, and it calls itself "Story 2", but really, you are just playing through the game again for no reason other then to squeeze more money out of poor souls that played it back in the day.
Which leads fittingly to my final criticism of the game: that good ol' arcade syndrome is here, and in full force. The game will throw enemies at you constantly, especially on the second go-round, and as you would expect, it is pretty annoying to deal with. This is especially annoying since your moveset is limited, to where you can only shoot in front of you, while standing up or crouching, and again, this wouldn't be a problem in other games like Mega Man, where the game was built around this limitation in versatility. However, in this game, enemies have very unpredictable movement patterns, so you never really know how to properly deal with them a lot. For example, there are these bat enemies that are introduced in Stage 3 that hover above you for a bit and then swoop down to damage you, but you aren't always sure which direction they will come from, and when they will swoop down, and by the time you do figure it out, you're already dead.
Now, I will say, there are some things that I like about this game, such as the fact that you can hop between multiple parts of the level and hide in doors and behind crates when dealing with enemies, with these mechanics going on to inspire other games like Shinobi and Time Crisis. That's pretty cool, and I also appreciate how you have a health bar, unlike a lot of other arcade games, where you take one hit and die instantly. Granted, in this game, you mainly take TWO hits before dying, but hey, a little help is better then no help at all. But that's really about it, everything else has been done significantly better in plenty of other games.
Overall, while it does have some good ideas, and it certainly isn't a terrible game, it was just way too repetitive and lackluster for me to properly give a recommendation for, and there are plenty of other Namco arcade titles you would have a much better time with rather then this. I just hope that the sequels take what was set up in this game and improve upon it in some way, but until I get to them, I can only hope.
Game #154