Lately I have been looking through the games of the seventh generation of consoles that I had yet to try. And it is that with the settlement of the digital sector motivated by services such as PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Arcade or Steam, there was a whole barrage of independent productions with greater or lesser fortune.
From those indies Thunder wolves it passed unnoticed by my radar. Of those in that market I was more interested in proposals such as Super Meat Boy, Castle Crashers or Trials HD, but everything changed when I had to recall the classic Desert Strike by Electronic Arts. There I remembered that the aforementioned Thunder Wolves was in a way his spiritual successor and I bought it on sale on Xbox 360.
As if the Strike saga became more popcorn
When it was launched in 2013, I just tried its demo and left it on the list of futuribles, but the truth is that after the arrival of Xbox One at the end of that year it made me forget a bit about the Xbox Live Arcade catalog, the which had not offered the quality of yesteryear for several months, with great games in each Summer of Arcade.
That it wasn’t backward compatible when Phil Spencer announced this highly demanded feature in 2015 didn’t help give it another chance either. But as I said on occasion, since I made the jump to the Xbox Series family months ago my fever for backwards compatible has skyrocketed … and also for Xbox 360 games that are not yet with the hope of seeing them one day, by not closing that door.
Be that as it may, Thunder wolves belonged to that huge list of indies that did not exceed the barrier of 10 euros And that can still be purchased for both XBLA (9.49 euros) and for Steam, where it is currently on sale for 1.99 euros. It was not a game that won big headlines in its day, nor did not score in its analysis (on average it did not exceed 69), but as soon as you like the Strike by EA you will have a game that will help you release adrenaline for a few moments.
If it attracts attention, it is not for evoking in a certain way the formula of those classics adapted to the times (without isometric view, of course), but for that turn towards the more popcorn action with cinematics that would be to Michael’s liking “BOOM “Bay for his huge number of explosions and especially for some situations in which he becomes a shooter on rails.
Think of Time Crisis, in the SEGA Virtua Cop or in the second part of Die Hard Trilogy to get you used to the idea. And it is that in certain missions, for a few brief moments, the view changed to first person and we only had to worry about aiming with the aim at the objectives that were asked of us, from infantry to tanks, ships or a series of structures. In general, they were scenes where you had to shoot non-stop, although in others you had to stop to calculate the shot as if you were a sniper to avoid alarms.
It was a strange but curious contrast, which at least served to bring variety to the games. Another issue was in the rest of the standard situations, more to the Desert strike, where if we chose to widen the sight (almost like in a typical FPS) the camera offered a very rough control and it was better to do it in the traditional way.
Thunder Wolves, an arcade for nostalgic people
On a technical level it could be improved, on the other hand. It is the typical game that would need an optimization so that everything was fluid and that the action did not suffer in the moments of greatest chaos. In this sense, I should have learned from Renegade Ops, which came out two years earlier … And no, it is not backward compatible either.
Thunder Wolves is a full-blown arcade, without pretentions. Their games are short and replayable, with all that kind of hackneyed objectives: destroy this, protect this other, rescue these allies … The map of each mission was not large, especially if we compared it with those of the Strike Nor did it offer great distractions. Here we went to the point until the final fireworks with his de rigueur boss, who could be another combat helicopter, a warship, a tank …
It wasn’t great but he was allowed to play, even today. Because the control is quite intuitive (with its tutorial everything was perfectly explained) and agile and versatile enough to face any type of situation, both when launching flares to deflect missiles and when releasing a good barrage of missiles on our part and without worrying about the ammunition, which was replenished by itself with the passage of time. There he separated a lot from the Strike, yes.
Secondly, offered a split-screen cooperative mode, which is something that is not lavished much today. Although it was missing not having an option for seniors online, except for the online leaderboards to compare the scores with the rest of the players in their dozen missions.
What would have preferred a new Strike? Of course. But it is not that we have had many alternatives since Electronic Arts abandoned that much-loved saga more than two decades ago. Hopefully one day it will return officially along with other mythical games. Although if to counteract the monkey you have to pull something more arcade, I’m not going to make you disgusted. But let him come back.