MMMC - Rolling Thunder

[scooterb23]

Hey everyone!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/scooterb23/mameclub.jpg

Sorry for the delays...still trying to get my new schedule worked together.

This week's game is the classic side-scroller Rolling Thunder. I spent tons of hours playing this extremely stylish game on the NES back in the good old days. I have never played the arcade version. I do remember the NES game being very unforgiving, but manageable with some memorization. Prehaps the arcade version is very much the same.

http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9362

http://www.arcade-museum.com/images/11/118124215780.png

Anyway, go to drop.io/dpmameclub to download it. Give it a few plays this week, and tell us what you think.

[Arasoi]

An old favorite of mine, I have this on arcade pcb and on Famicom (the Tengen US release is missing Namco's custom sound chip).

The game can be be quite rough sometimes, but it is very beatable. The only nasty part is clearing the lava area in the second loop en route to the ending. Some dirty tricks are employed with enemy spawns and tiny platforms near the end that may have you yelling lol.

I've played lots of clones of this gameplay style (Surprise Attack, Codename: Viper, etc) but I always come back to this one more than the others, even it's sequels.

[Rendclaw]

I remember this game making me want to tear my hair out because it was so cheap. Thus I never went too far with it.

EDIT: Ah yes, its just as annoying as I remember it to be..

[stargate]

One of the benefits of growing up in the 80's and living next to an arcade was being able to experience all these classics first hand when they were actually released.

So I've got that going for me. :)

I remember when this one came out. The graphics were somewhat advanced compared to many of the games out at the time. The characters moved really fluidly and the game had a very cool look and feel to it.

I tried it a few times, but the difficulty level was too much for me. I usually only had a few bucks to spend at a time and this one was a quarter muncher... really easy to die and hard to master. I gave it another shot today. Still hard, but with unlimited "quarters", I may just have to try completing it.

[IronBuddha]

What's frustrating about this game is that you would think you can hide behind the door for protection, but that's pretty much setting yourself up to be killed. Also some platforms don't allow you to do the down jump which will also get you killed if don't know which ones. Lastly it would have been nice to shoot when jumping but oh well. First game I got to the second stage and scored 46,000.

[Ed Oscuro]

Er, anyway, fun game here. Never got too far into it when I first emulated it years ago (and that's still my only option), and the colors of the second appealed to me a bit more. I'll give it another try soon.


One of the benefits of growing up in the 80's and living next to an arcade was being able to experience all these classics first hand when they were actually released.

So I've got that going for me. :)
Compared to..? On the other hand, nobody can take away my experiencing all the 'classics' (some not so classic) with fresh eyes only from 2002 onward (I had very little exposure to games as a kid, and it was just as well since it's been a battle since the first personal computer hit in 1996 to be responsible and game lol).

[Ed Oscuro]

Wow, I hadn't realized that I never made it out of the first stage before. I'm definitely better this time around, and I like that stuff in the second stage. Think you're supposed to run out of bullets halfway into the second stage though.

44,560 - Area 2 - EAH

[Rifter01]

I scored 33200. Never made it past the tire & sandbag area.. I think my problem is I'm trying to play it too much like Shinobi, (trying to jump and fire at the same time doesn't work in this).

I remember this was a pretty big quarter-eater for me back in the day. I have this on Namco Museum Virt.Arcade.

[Rendclaw]

Yeah, once I spent four dollars on it and never got past the first area, I gave up on it. Too cheap and too easy to get killed.

[Shellshock!]

I played this one a year ago in some retro compilation too, and I persevered all the way to the end despite the cheap deaths. Except it wasn't the end. I had to do it all over again but with harder difficulty. No patience!

[Ed Oscuro]

I spent maybe a couple hours (max, not too long) in two sessions with Rolling Thunder today and made good progress, unexpectedly.

67,560, got to the latter half of the third area.

I had a big breakthrough at the flight of stairs on the second half of the second area; basically, you can jump down many of the stairs (down + jump).

The next stage has its own music! Nothing amazing but it's a nice change. There is a new enemy type there that is a bit difficult to deal with - and then there's these black panthers in the second part which have me on edge.

Can't really slap a savestate there after score entry because of bank switching graphics...they get fouled up on the load. Still playable but you can't really see what's going on.

[Ed Oscuro]

Good grief. I got past Stage 3 - from states - and went through parts of Stage 4. Didn't take too many tries, but... :o

There's a whole bunch of totally new stuff (enemies, graphics) and some tricky things that require precise timing and movement (but first you have to figure them out). The fade-in-from-invisible blue guys are annoying, of course.

[Neb6]

I remember when I first saw this one in an arcade when it was new. Neat game and one of the first anime games (aside from maybe Cliff Hanger or Bega's Battle).

And yeah, it's a tough one. For some reason though, I just kept on plugging coins into it. I guess that's what the designers of the game intended. I think the fact that I'd already played Defender II, Gravitar, and Robotron was what made me think,"Hmmm.... This game is tough, but not as tough as some others."

I recently tried Rolling Thunder II. It's pretty darned good!