Tactical shooters are fun and relaxing for those who enjoy structure and a sprinkle of chaos. Thunder Tier One is one of those games where you can go in with a plan, execute it to its fullest, and then move on to another mission. It’s like playing a live-action Delta Force film. Not that I’ve seen that series. I’m more akin to Delta Farce. Anyway, let’s break down Thunder Tier One.
Let’s move forward!
It looks and plays soundly
A tactical top-down shooter experience has been around forever. The 90s thrived in such things because of graphic limitations. Hell, Warcraft and Starcraft were birthed from that genre (more RTS, but they’re good cousins). Thunder Tier One holds true to the formula of what makes a tactical shooter entertaining, engaging, and complicated enough to keep gamers who enjoy planning in their gaming sessions busy.
The gameplay is structured with putting together a team of four soldiers (could be NPCs, could be good friends, whatever you want), scoping out the details of a mission, and customizing your characters in a precise way (guns, armor, etc.) to have the best chance of succeeding in that mission. Then you’re cast into the mission to execute all your structured plans. You can order soldiers to do certain tasks, can tell your team to focus fire on enemies, or just be stealthy and try to work your way into capturing places without tipping off enemies. There are a variety of ways to approach missions and you get to plan the structure of them. That’s the very heart of how a tactical shooter works and what has made the genre successful for years.
What separates this one from the rest? Nothing on the surface. It does have quite a bit of weaponry and customization, which will certainly intrigue the most dedicated tactical shooter gamers out there. I know that for games like this customization is a huge deal and Thunder Tier One plays it safe with old familiar ways of customizing your character. It uses a Resident Evil-style equipment management system, where weapons and odds/ends fit on your personal space in block sizes. This means you can only carry a finite amount of equipment with you, which offers up some strategizing and forethought. Is that a good thing? I think so, because the genre really does require you to think about what you’re doing to prep for a mission before going on it, and this allows you to customize your experience depending on what the mission details. Of course, that’s how these games should work, and Thunder Tier One doesn’t disappoint.
The number of customization options maybe separate it from other games of its type. The good folks at Krafton and fragOUT studio want to make sure you can go far and deep with how you dress and how you arm your character. There are detailed and precise customization options that allow you to spec out your soldier. From hats, armor, and every kind of personal item on your soldier, you can pretty much change them as you please. The customization will most certainly also motivate people to keep unlocking equipment and going on missions repeatedly. People will continually strive to do better to do and get more.
To get more means to run missions. The missions themselves are plain in the beginning to get you embedded into the gameplay style and remind you how tactical shooters work. As you progress through the missions, they get more complicated, and the mission goals get a bit more difficult. This is to be expected and assumed with a good tactical shooter. You train on how it works; you start slowly getting into the missions as they get more difficult. It’s all proper and Thunder Tier One doesn’t deviate from that formula.
The game also features the option of playing the campaign and single missions in arcade or realism mode. The arcade mode allows you to get shot, patched up, and continue like you’re a healthy individual. Realism mode is a bit more brutal. If you get shot to the point where you might need help, then you’re more than likely f*****. The mission ends. You must start over. For those Dark Souls fanatics that enjoy dying repeatedly, enjoy the Realism mode. I like that you get different levels of challenges with this game, as it works for different types of players.
As you will certainly find out in the tutorial, there are lots of ways to do different things in the game. Calling out for help, ordering your soldiers to take out a target, getting help, giving help, unlocking doors, kicking in doors, melee, throwing grenades, switching weapons on the fly – there are a lot of commands to remember. You might feel overwhelmed after the tutorial. Hell, you might even think to take notes. Not that I did that, but the option of pencil/paper/easily accessible excel sheet is always there. Thankfully, the game gives you constant cues on what to push to get things ordered, which I’m eternally grateful for them including. It makes life far easier. The onscreen cues and HUDs are beautifully woven into the gameplay, which makes life easier as you play the game. As an older timer with limited memory strength, I thoroughly appreciate the ease of use of the controls thanks to these reminders. It made the game, which looks incredibly complicated on the surface, much easier to navigate.
The only pseudo-knock I have against this game in the controls department is that they excluded a controller option. Granted, I’m a console gamer by nature and I don’t like keyboard and mouse (I know, you can verbally kill me on Twitter about it if you want), but this game requires you to go keyboard and mouse all the time. I would have loved a controller option but understand that probably isn’t possible due to the number of keys required to do different moves in the game. I’m sure that fragOUT and Krafton could have put something together in this category, but that probably would have been an absolute disaster. Still, I would enjoy a controller option. And, no, I won’t knock points off this game’s score because of this complaint. The game was never built for this option. I just need to suck it up and eventually get used to the keyboard and mouse.
Just getting thoughts out.
In terms of content, I don’t have any complaints about what it offers up. It’s really a run-of-the-mill tactical shooter when it comes to execution. There isn’t a lot that stands out, but nothing that is bad. It just works and it’s entertaining. It doesn’t do anything special, no ‘exceeds expectations’, but it works and it’s what you would expect from a game like this. It is nice to play online with friends, play multiplayer, and host a game. That is neat and cool. Beyond that, I think there is more content to be had in the future and I can see a good expansion sometime down the road if this takes off.
As it stands right now, it’s a good game that will please those itching for a tactical shooter. It’s pretty (gorgeous – fantastic lighting and details), it is packed with customization, and it offers up several different ways to play the game. What more could you want from Thunder Tier One?
Conclusion
Thunder Tier One is a good game. It has a decent amount of customization options, features a good tactical system that will entertain those looking for a tactical fix, and doesn’t really do anything groundbreaking or genre-changing for tactical shooters. It’s simply a good game with hopes for more content in the future.
