Rolling Thunder 2 Game Sample - Genesis/MD
0Original Air Date: May 29th, 2009
This game rules and it was actually one of the earliest games I played on the Genesis besides Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Phantasy Star II, Alex Kidd and Alisia Dragoon. When I was a kid, I vaguely remembered the game because of the "hot chick" (that I now know is Leila) and my mother rented it for me to play on my older brother's Genesis. Because of that, it will always have some sort of special place in my memory.
Rolling Thunder 2 is a classic run and gun arcade-style game that, unsurprisingly, orginally appeared in arcades. This is the superb port of that arcade game, which includes static cutscenes and additional levels not in the arcade game as well as a rather unique password system. Instead of the mundane single-letter or number approach, RT2 had you string together groups of words to form funny phrases like "A magical thunder learned the secret", which is easier to remember than:
assxbb2
kthxbai
O4S?rQL
Omgorly
The game is relatively simple to pick up and play. You can play as either Leila or Albatross, members of Interpol's "Rolling Thunder" espionage unit, who are on a mission to stop Neo-Geldra. You walk around and can shoot people while having access to basic manuevers such as ducking and jumping, as well as get power-ups like the ability to rapid fire and use a flamethrower. You can also jump high to climb ledges above you, jump down to places below you, and enter doors with various goodies. Additionally, you can hide within a few other areas, but the doors are the coolest because an enemy can walk into the room you're in and not find you! I guess the Rolling Thunder secret agents are also magicians at the drop of a dime. The best part about this game is the two-player mode and the game's overall simplicity and effectiveness.
Everything is very easy to control, the game looks good, sounds good, and it's a damn shame Namco doesn't look like they'll bring this series back anytime soon. This series is an oft-forgotten classic. We own every console-based Rolling Thunder game. Enjoy.