Rolling Thunder
Nintendo Entertainment System
Nostalgia Factor:
Rolling Thunder and I go back a loooong way. I remember playing the arcade version at my local bowling alley when I was a little kid. My family also really loved this game, and I specifically remember my grandma watching us kids play, hooting and hollering at the way the character walked and all the funny and sometimes unexpected deaths we had to constantly endure. This is my grandma we’re talking about – someone who couldn’t care less about video games. And she just loved it.
We’d end up getting the NES home console version shortly thereafter. Again, the family fun continued. My mom used to play this game nearly every day while she rode her exercise bike. My mom is also someone who couldn’t care less about video games. Rolling Thunder must have been a hell of a game for its time to get two video game haters interested in it.
I loved this game too, even though I was terrible at it. And for good reason: this game is freaking hard!
I decided now that I have access to emulators and save states, I’d revisit Rolling Thunder and see if I could cross a video game off of my “never been able to beat” bucket list. How did it go? Keep reading!
Story:
I don’t know too many specifics of this game’s story, as not much is actually revealed in-game. All I know is that you control a special agent who infiltrates an enemy hideout in order to rescue a kidnapped colleague. Brief story segments between stages show your friend getting tortured and harassed by some bald headed alien looking motherfucker and his clan. What’s their deal?
Gameplay:
It’s been said that Rolling Thunder was the inspiration for future duck and cover shooting games, and it is easy to see why. Controlling your character, your goal is to make it to the end of each of the game’s ten stages, shooting enemies, ducking behind boxes, hiding behind doors, jumping over obstacles, and trying to stay alive – which is easier said than done.
Enemies are constantly coming out of doors, dropping from the ceiling, popping up at the edge of the screen, and just appearing out of thin air. You need to be on your toes as you play or you are going to find yourself dying quite often. Even if you are on your toes, you’re still going to find yourself dying a lot. This is just one of those games.
Enemy types consist of mainly the same type of generic bad guy. Each one wears a different colored outfit that indicates differing attack patterns. Some of them just stand stationary and shoot, others try to hit you with physical attacks, some throw grenades, others run around and duck and shoot at you. Remember the different colored Foot soldiers in the TMNT games and how they all had slightly different attacks? It’s pretty much the same here. You’ll encounter other enemies as you play, too. You’ve got little jumping creatures that are hard to hit, bats, panthers, and leaping stick figures made out of fire.
You start out with a basic single fire handgun, but you can find weapon upgrades behind specifically marked doors. The machine gun upgrade fires rapid-fire bullets and is good for taking down hard-to-hit enemies who pop out from behind boxes to try and shoot you. You can enter other marked doors to fill up your ammunition, but honestly you die so much in this game I never once found myself running out of ammo.
Jumping is a big part of this game’s mechanics. Most stages consist of two “levels” – the ground floor and balconies or ledges in the air. You can jump up and down between these two levels, and in fact it is necessary to do so if you want to make it very far in this game. Much of Rolling Thunder is strategically maneuvering between these two levels to avoid or take out enemies.
As you play you’ll encounter stacked crates that you need to jump on to move to the top of certain stages. Other stages have stacked tires you need to navigate through. Other stages have pits or fire-engulfed holes you need to jump over. Fall and you die. Get shot and you die. You can generally withstand two physical attacks before dying, though. Like I said, I was never able to beat this game as a kid and I can easily see why. I could barely beat this game as an adult using save states. It’s freaking hard!
Graphics:
This looks pretty decent for an NES game. I haven’t played the arcade game in years (probably since I was a little kid at the bowling alley), but I’m sure it looks better than this version of the game. The characters look… okay. I’m a little bit torn on the stage graphics because while I can easily say that the levels are well-designed and have some memorable set pieces (the stacked crates, the panther cages, the tires, etc) at the same time they do look a bit outdated and basic.
This game’s visuals definitely haven’t withstood the test of time in the way other NES titles have, and that’s okay. It looks decent and the game is still perfectly playable, and that’s all that really matters to me.
Sound:
This game has some fun and memorable stage tunes. Kind of brings to mind classic spy themes like you might hear in a James Bond type game. The sound effects aren’t anything memorable, but I do love the evil cackling of the game’s main villain. I can hear it right now even as I type this up!
Overall:
As flawed and as crazy challenging as this game is, I still like it. It’s probably harder than Donkey Kong Country, which I just got through complaining about in my last review, but for some reason I don’t hold that against it. It’s almost a part of this game’s identity. Rolling Thunder wouldn’t be Rolling Thunder without its insane difficulty level!
There’s something inherently charming about this game. The second I fired it up, it brought a smile to my face. It’s a bit strange how nostalgia and fond memories can cloud your judgment, because I am absolutely certain that if I had played Rolling Thunder for the first time here in the year 2021, I wouldn’t have liked it very much. Maybe I wouldn’t have hated it, but I probably wouldn’t have had a whole lot of nice things to say about the game.
But you know what they say. To quote the immortal Colby Donaldson: If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas. I’m not quite sure how that applies here, but it seems appropriate. I do have nostalgic feelings for Rolling Thunder. I do like this game. I recognize its flaws, yes, but I’m not going to let them detract from the fun time I just had. I’m curious to check out the arcade version of the game and see how it compares. There’s a few sequels for the Sega Genesis as well that I want to check out.
There’s so much Rolling Thunder to play, and that’s a good problem for me to have. Hopefully I have as much fun with the others as I did with this one.
Final Score:
B
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