Arcade Archives has dropped another classic arcade game. Hamster has been working overtime cranking out a massive archive of vintage arcade titles for years and it was pretty exciting to see Arcade Archives Rolling Thunder on that list!
For those of you that don’t remember it, Rolling Thunder was a fairly popular arcade spy game where you ‘re a spy code-named Albatross and you fight a bunch of masked minions in colorful KKK-style masks to rescue your partner. That’s pretty much the whole plot and since this is a late ‘80s arcade game, we’re not looking much deeper than fun factor here. Don’t expect a deep and interesting story here because you’ll definitely be disappointed.
Rolling Thunder was a spectacular quarter sucker. There was a machine in the foyer of an old department store in the town I grew up in and every time I was there, I’d beg for a few quarters to give it another try. I never got past level two and it turns out there’s a really good reason for that. The game is outrageously hard! There are two difficulty settings in Rolling Thunder, Easy and Normal, and honestly, it probably doesn’t matter which one you pick. Learning where everything is won’t help you either because the algorithm that spawns enemies is really random in areas plentiful with doors, making things even more challenging.
Now, you’re probably reading this going “Yeah, this guy probably sucks though.” Be assured that Rolling Thunder will rock your world. For starters, you’ve got a health bar. It’s got eight bars on it. Seems like you’ll have a chance, right? Well, any contact with any enemy wipes out half of your life bar. Two hits, you’re done. Dead. 3 lives on default difficulty means 6 hits and it’s game over and time to start from the beginning. Oh, and some enemies can single shot you too, both with contact and with bullets. That eight bars is just a tease and a cruel one at that!
Your two button abilities are to jump and to fire your gun. You can duck as well, and you’ll definitely have to, but mostly you’re firing and jumping. Seems straightforward, right? But you’ve only got a limited supply of bullets, levels consist of multiple parts for each one, and, lest we make things too easy, there’s also a timer so even if you’re doing well, if you take too long you lose anyway. A single bullet takes out the weakest enemies but some get back up and require a second. They also jump at you, throw bombs, fire guns, and jump down at you from railings above and up to your level. This is all before things get really nasty on the later levels. There are only five initial levels in the first story (and five more in the second) but the sheer frustration they create by simple unfair enemy overpopulation and ridiculous lifebar problems are enough to drive away all but the most dedicated players.
Perhaps the appeal of Rolling Thunder isn’t in its gameplay though. Rolling Thunder looked cool when it came out. It looked cool in the arcade and it still looks cool now. Simplistic by today’s standards but cool nonetheless. And when you’re playing it you feel like you could almost get to that next level if you just had one more credit before you ran out. It’s that compulsive feel to the game, that feeling that even though you know it’s unquestionably unfair that if you just got a tiny bit better you’d show it who’s boss. That’s some pretty spectacular design work by Namco, both in the sprites and the overall vibe of Rolling Thunder.
Now, it seems that Hamster has more than an inkling that the balance is off here. There are plenty of things to help you out in this remastered version of Rolling Thunder, including the ability to shift difficulties, change the number of extra lives, and even toggle a stage select, allowing you to pick any of the five levels as a starting point because, let’s be honest, you’re not getting to level five without some help. And if you even thought you were done then, there’s another five levels after that if you’re really into self-flagellation. Namco pulled out all the stops for the hardcore crowd here, so if that’s your thing, Rolling Thunder will get you going!
For the rest of us normal people, even the first five levels are a struggle. Sure, you can grab machine gun bullets and refills of ammo in various doors, the rail jump mechanics to switch between different horizontal levels of the screen are awesome, and the animations are cool as all get out, like an 80s pixel anime, but there are plenty of negatives here. For starters, the longer you stay in one place, the more enemies appear from doors. Sounds ok until you get stuck grabbing bullets too close to enemies and they touch you when you come out, killing you instantly. Or when you jump and slowly drift down at a 45 degree angle until you just hit an enemy. Or worst of all, when your enemies are on a different plane than you in the screen depth and your bullets literally go right through them, but then you jump down onto the floor and they immediately hit or shoot you. Grrrr.
The ability to go back to Rolling Thunder is awesome, and Hamster threw a few other goodies in too. There are actually five version of the game available, including an early version, a ‘later’ version, a final version, a hi-score mode (good luck there) and a caravan mode. Most of the different versions play and look pretty much the same and differences are fairly minor but it’s neat to have them included. You can even use interrupt data to grind your way through inch by inch to finish Rolling Thunder, but if you turn the game off, you lose that interrupt for some reason. Noticeably frustrating.
All in all, this is a great release of a memorable sub-standard arcade experience, maximized to provide the best experience you can get from Rolling Thunder. There are a ton of options and tweaks, some original arcade art, screen filters, and a lot more hidden in all the menus for the five different version of Rolling Thunder that you’ll be getting too, so it’s not like you’re short on content! And yes, those fuzzier photos are actual screens due to some of the filter options! Chances are you probably forgot how tough the game was if you’ve played it before though and if not, you’d better be ready for frustration! Either way, at only $8 it’s a neat little piece of history that’s both infuriating and still somehow fun after all these years!
This review is based on a digital copy of Arcade Archives Rolling Thunder provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes. Arcade Archives Rolling Thunder is also available on PS4.