Rolling Thunder (1986)

Namco

Amiga · Amstrad CPC · Arcade · Atari ST/STE · Commodore C64/128/MAX · Nintendo Entertainment System · Wii · ZX Spectrum

3.12 from 34 ratings

100 members have it in their collection · 1 playing now · 21 backlogged · 9 wish listed

Rolling Thunder is a run and gun/action arcade game that was released by Namco in 1986 and licensed to Atari Games for US manufacture and distribution. It runs upon Namco System 86 hardware, and was later converted for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the Commodore 64, the Amstrad CPC, the Atari ST, the Commodore 64, and the Nintendo Family Computer. It … Read more
Rolling Thunder is a run and gun/action arcade game that was released by Namco in 1986 and licensed to Atari Games for US manufacture and distribution. It runs upon Namco System 86 hardware, and was later converted for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the Commodore 64, the Amstrad CPC, the Atari ST, the Commodore 64, and the Nintendo Family Computer. It was also featured in Namco Museum Encore. The player takes control of "Albatross", a member of the WCPO's (World Crime Police Organization) "Rolling Thunder" espionage unit. Albatross's mission is to save a missing female agent named Leila Blitz from a secret society named Geldra located in New York City. Albatross must travel through two different segments or "stories", both comprised of five stages, for a total of ten game stages. On each stage, Albatross can enter doors, to hide and take cover from enemies, as well jump over to higher or lower floors with rails, including stairs. Albatross begins this game armed with a standard-issue pistol, which can be substituted with a fully automatic assault rifle that allows for continuous firing by holding down the firing button. Albatross can gain ammunition for either weapon, by entering doors which are marked "bullets" or "arms". Despite the presence of a life meter, Albatross can only take two physical hits from the enemy: a single hit drains half of the meter, and he will be killed instantly when struck by a projectile attack such as enemy bullets or lasers. (However, all bullets can be blocked by your own). Read less
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Details

Developers
Namco
Publishers
Gradiente, Namco, Namco Bandai Games, Tengen, U.S. Gold
Genres
Platform, Shooter
Themes
Action
Series
Rolling Thunder

Release dates

  • Dec 01, 1986 (Japan) Arcade
  • 1987 (Europe) Commodore C64/128/MAX
  • 1988 (Europe) Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST/STE, ZX Spectrum
  • Mar 17, 1989 (Japan) Nintendo Entertainment System
  • 1989 (North_America) Commodore C64/128/MAX, Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Nov 1990 (Brazil) Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Jul 21, 2009 (Japan) Wii

Also available on

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Rating distribution

5 stars
3
4 stars
6
3 stars
18
2 stars
6
1 star
1
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Community All Reviews Statuses

Chovus

Status Chovus Apr 18, 2025

Beat in slow motion mode. This was a short simple game. What immediately struck me was how ridiculous the character looked, red shirt and casual white pants on legs that were way too long. Like Mr Rogers on stilts. Really did not give me action hero vibes. Gameplay was simple 2D platforming and shooting but with very unforgiving mechanics. Die …

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Beat in slow motion mode. This was a short simple game. What immediately struck me was how ridiculous the character looked, red shirt and casual white pants on legs that were way too long. Like Mr Rogers on stilts. Really did not give me action hero vibes. Gameplay was simple 2D platforming and shooting but with very unforgiving mechanics. Die in 1 hit (or 2 from touching guys), no direction control while in mid air, need momentum to jump, and no shooting while in the air. Straight up, the platforming was bad, often with instant death from messing it up. He could also jump between 2 layers, and there were doors to go in. Ones marked bullets gave ammo while ones marked arms gave machine gun ammo, which had a faster rate of fire and projectile speed. Once I got extra time from an unmarked door but I gave up trying to find that again. With frequent save state scumming I had max bullets and only ran out of MG ammo once in the middle and again at the boss. The only time I fired more than single precise shots was to get guys popping out of cover as I needed the extra shots to hit them while ducking theirs. The game got progressively more difficult with new enemies and more of the guys having guns. The worst were the bats because there was no way to shoot up without being on a platform at their level. Instead I had to wait for them to dive with only a split second to hit them. There were some extremely tough parts towards the end where the enemies set up kill areas that took me many attempts to get past. Sometimes I had to backtrack a bit to get them to move, or wait, or just be lucky. Wish there were grenades to hit lower enemies. I beat stage 8 or 9 with only 6 seconds left, which was the most difficult for me with tricky platforming. The boss was simply alternating low and high shots to destroy his fire balls.

Very difficult game that I doubt I would want to play without save states. It really could have used some story text and more scenes of the girl instead of repeating them for the latter stages. I am tempted to give it a 5 but there was some fun from the shooting and almost puzzle like tactics to not getting killed.

6.0/10

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