INTRODUCTION

So, here I am again kids, from a year-long self-imposed sort of hiatus. The sort of hiatus that one checks himself into accidentally because he was drunk on love, and whisky, but mainly whisky and ended up spending the last year in a padded cell, making a valiant attempt to inform the guards that no, there are no alien robots seeking out radio transmissions who then follow said radio transmissions to their source and scour clean the terminal point of any life form foolish enough to dump all that radiation out into space and that they should let me out of this white canvas tuxedo as it was seriously cramping my both my style and my elbows.

So, here I am. Sort of out of my commitment bender and ready to kick some more video games in the ass. Quite some time back, I received an electronic mail from a gent enquiring about the game Rolling Thunder, to which I of course, being a good and cheerful lad, quickly replied an impromptu Brief History of Rolling Thunder.

To which I decided to get off my horse, high that he is, and write an in-depth and complete history of Rolling Thunder and the whole Rolling Thunder franchise. Granted, this was about nine months ago and being the punctual cuss that I am, I'm just now getting around to writing the article and then maybe sitting on it for two further months in a fit of editorial disgust then haphazardly mashing out a shoddy web design and then posting the resultant mess to my web page to be viewed by upwards of five people! All right!

Without much further ado, I present for your viewing pleasure:

(Secret Hint! Thundercade was a shitty top-view shooting action game from American Sammy. Do not play it under any circumstances, as it will kill you. This special hint is a Three Fingered Salute exclusive and available only to subscribers)

The Rolling Thunder Arcade Cabinet Operator's Manual. Quite possibly the most out-and-out stylish Operator's Manual since the 1942 Caterpillar D-2. If you have the means, I highly recommend it. Download it from KLOV by going clicky-clicky.

I was in kindergarten when Rolling Thunder crashed onto the scene, way back in Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Six, Anno Domini. Back then, my grandfather would take me to a local casino, where he would hang out with his cronies (god, how I love that word, it is impossible for me to think of my small but elite cadre of amigos as anything other than 'cronies.' Besides, the word just has more than a bit of greasiness and darkness to it, much like the family-unfriendly casinos that I would at times frequent in my tender, formative years) and discuss grandfatherly things like welding, firearms and The War. He would of course issue me with a big old stack of quarters and set me about the at the time minimalist arcade portion of the casino. That part of the casino (Sharkey's, if any of you from the area really give two shits) used to be somewhat of a storage area. The space behind the sparse selection of games (Dig Dug, Asteroids, Xevios, Time Pilot '84, Defender and the seminal Centipede) where sat dozens of burnt-out and decrepit slot machines, was nailed to the wall an immense mirror with the image of a topless woman with a black feather boa and cowboy boots. Mind you, this was a rednecky shitkicker sort of establishment, the sort of which there were still peanut shells on the floor by the saloon up until the year 199X, but I digress.

For years, I'd play Dig Dug or Time Pilot '84 (I am, friends, A Time Pilot-Playing Motherfucker; to this date, there are two games I cannot resist plunking a quarter or two into whenever I see the cabinet. One being Time Pilot (Time Pilot '84 I could really take or leave as I'm a fan of the simpler things in life) and the other being Metal Slug. I defy you to pass by a Metal Slug machine and not want to play it.

Anyhow, years passed, the film The Wizard was in part made in my little town (more on this later) and old Sharkey had the storage area cleaned out and had moved all them blinking, blipping video games to an even less-accessible portion of the casino, namely where the old peanut-shells-and-spittoons saloon was located. Gladly, they kept both the dank and a player piano that would periodically bust into a rousing rendition of 'The Entertainer.' Which was severely awesome, as one of the new games they had purchased was the wonderful gun game Cheyenne (what a better selection for a casino in what some could still argue is the Wild West?), Takegi (grrr Takegi) and Rolling Thunder. It was one fateful day, one balmy summer day smack in the middle of my second Summer Vacation Away From School I ever had that I ran into the Rolling Thunder cabinet (and the resultant bruise led to a conversation with the Child Welfare People so convoluted it would make a Fraiser screenwriter blush). I was a lad of seven, going on third grade and there she was, Rolling Thunder. From the first moment I saw the hooded terrorists with their slinky, menacing movements, I was in love. And it was a love that has lasted to this day, despite one real girlfriend, two on-line girlfriends, three suicide attempts (totally unrelated I can assure you) and a substance abuse habit that would make the members of Motley Crue sit up and take notice. But again, I'm digressing (I tend to do that, in case you haven't taken the time to notice).

For years I would plunk quarters into that Rolling Thunder cabinet. Personally, I must have paid for that machine. Also note in my years and years of playing that game, I could never beat the third level. The same goes for Choplifter, which was right next the Rolling Thunder cabinet, but there I go again with the asides!

Everything about Rolling Thunder just screams sex. Sex Sex Sex like a buzzing neon sign in front of a brothel. Sex Sex Sex. The way the hero Albatross moves, walks, jumps, vaults over rails and dispatches terrorists with his pistol. Everything he does is effortless and smirking. While Schwarzenegger was flexing his immense physique then riddling our movie screens with machine gun fire in Commando and Predator, Albatross was the type of action hero we all secretly wished we could become. Men wanted him and women wanted to be him. He was Suave. Debonair. Smooth. Effortless. Graceful. When I die, I hope that my last motions could be captured in as many frames of animation as old Albatross. Sex Sex Sex.

The enemies in Rolling Thunder were symbols of menace, from the way they'd carry themselves as they walked to the way their idle animations had them peeking around cautiously, sweeping the corridors for the errant superspy terrorist eliminator to swoop in and reduce them to a gooey puddle on the floor. Sure, they were snazzy dressers, but who wasn't back in the eighties? Albatross wore a red turtleneck and matching Beatle-boots, who are you to criticize the fashion statement that the agents of Geldra sported?

What was absolutely wonderful about the enemies of Rolling Thunder is that each bad guy sprite was much more than the simple palette-swap that plagues so many other videogames of the same vein. Each terrorist 'type' had a similar 'theme,' they all had hoods. Hoods with little white eyeholes that they would glower out at you with. Except for the yellow guys that took two hits. They had goggles. The red terrorists had holsters for their pistols. The green terrorists had bandoliers for their grenades. Each terrorist 'type' was similar to the other in their general appearance, but each 'type' had distinctions other than a simple palette-swap. In this day and age of X-Boxes and Quake 3 Engines, video game developers still rely on the tried-and-true Palette-Swap to distinguish varying degrees of enemy toughness. For shame. You all could stand to learn a little from Rolling Thunder, each and every one of you.

Rolling Thunder NES

I still say that Tengen's port of Tetris is more fun than Nintendo's own offering

As the swallows return to Capistrano, the porting of an enormously-successful arcade game to the Nintendo Entertainment System was inevitable. The same sort of inevitability that states that if we do not stop sending radio signals out into space, the berserkers will eventually come for us, come for us and wipe us out completely and with extreme prejudice (which of course, is the only possible solution to the Fermi Paradox, it's all quite scientific and rational. Remember that the next time you're chatting on your cellular phone in a movie theater then a goddamned killer robot from outer space eats your fucking head). So, in 1989, Tengen of all people rolled their own Rolling Thunder for the NES. At the time Atari was at odds with the Big Red N and a little part of me thought that, heck, why would they release video games for their main competitor's system! Why, that's just crazy talk! Like Sega releasing games for a Nintendo console! It was just unbelievable! Unfathomable! Yet for some reason, they did. Unofficially.

You might remember Tengen as the sharks who produced those black semi-pirate video game cartridges for the NES. Said video games did not meet with Nintendo's strict guidelines and therefore did not receive the coveted Seal of Approval. The Seal of Approval was only issued to video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System that were of the utmost quality and precision! Inasuch, publishers such as Tengen, Color Dreams and AVE must not have made games up to the strict specifications to warrant a Nintendo Seal of Approval! Tengen was the publisher to unleash an unlicensed, stolen version of Tetris upon the world. A version of Tetris that I still think is much more fun than Nintendo's own, properly-licensed offering.

Tengen was a strange beast, having cracked and hacked Nintendo's own anti-pirating system (and allegedly selling the workaround to Color Dreams who to this day still produce game cartridges for the Nintendo Entertainment System) which was more of a 'publisher lock-in' system than any sort of copy protection. Tengen gained extreme notoriety as being a particularly weasely company who would commit acts of outright theft of video game properties, rebrand and repackage them and release them for the NES, Genesis, Master System and Amiga. Interestingly enough, Tengen was to Atari and Namco as Ultra was to Konami, meaning that both companies were an outlet for the other, well-known, legitimate companies to release their godawful videogames unto the market without tarnishing their otherwise pristine names and reputations (Tengen gave us pirate carts with Tetris and After Burner whereas Ultra gave us non-pirate carts with Metal Gear and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on them. History showed that the Tengen carts stood the test of time, whereas Ultra's offerings were lost forever, relegated to the eternal bargain bin in the sky and said titles never again saw the light of day or dozens of heady, ponderous, pretentious sequels. Oh to imagine what could have been, to imagine...). Or so it would seem.

Tengen would release games that were hits on Sega's various platforms and Atari's various arcade hits on the competing NES console. The wicked-sinful black cartridges would soak up all the foul will spewed by both the Nintendo Corporation and the scads of Nintendo Purist Fanboys who would never soil their Control Deck's tender, moist slit with such filth, but had no problems whatsoever with cramming copies of Burai Fighter or S.C.A.T. or Shadow of the Black Manta or even Abadox into their all-controlling Deck, as you see, those games had the coveted Seal of Approval which of course said nothing of the quality of the games therein, simply that the publisher had paid Nintendo big fat sacks of the green stuff and several underage thai prostitutes in order to get that gold seal stamped on their video game box art and then coverage rolled out in the pages of Nintendo Power. Nintendo purists were above Tengen games, despite the fact that they were actually pretty damned fun.

So, we have Tengen releasing a game for the NES bearing extreme resemblance to Atari's breakout arcade hit Rolling Thunder, complete with similar sprites, similar animations, similar level design, similar music, similar sound effects, similar storyline, similar cutscenes and such a similar title card that one would be more than willing to accept it as the Real Deal, a Honest To God, Licensed By Atari Port of their favorite arcade game to their favorite home entertainment console! Apparently, we in the video gaming public have been deceived by a very clever deception on the part of Tengen! As Atari would never, ever, never in a million years release an official port of one of their games to their most hated of rivals' consoles! After all, that would be insane! Maddening! What logic is there in a company who hated Nintendo, because they, you know put them out of business and all to release games on Nintendo's console? There isn't! Any at all! Except for Filthy Lucre, but when has acquiring fat stacks of Worthless Greater American Dollars ever been in the minds of video game hardware developers who all have bitter, bitter rivalries between one another and have system-spec dickmeasuring contests every time their next generations of hardware come out? What was I thinking, assuming that video game companies cared one iota about money when they could be touting their technological and graphical superiority over their competitors! After all, the company with the largest perceived penis size will win the hearts and minds of video game buyers everywhere, and of course they'll be willing to shell out the huge dollars for the system with the flashiest graphics and best games! Which of course explains the staggering worldwide sales records of Microsoft's MSX2 X-Box.

Uh, if you've never played the NES port of Rolling Thunder and wish to call yourself a completist of any sort, you should make with the clicky-clicky and download the ROM image. Technically, since this incarnation of Rolling Thunder was a pirate game, you are not breaking nor are you manhandling any intellectual-property laws! So all of you who run into conniption fits about downloading and storing ROM images as they are totally breaking the law can just shut the fuck up and play themselves up some Rolling Thunder already. Pansies.

Rolling Thunders Two and Three

One could liken Rolling Thunder to the reign of Julius Caesar, it certainly marked the Rise of the Roman Empire. Rolling Thunder 2 on the other hand, was akin to the coronation of Nero Caesar hailing the slide into oblivion and darkness of the Rolling Thunder Franchise. Being a good little hyperlink pimp, I'll just allow the link do my talking. If you want to, for some reason, download and play Rolling Thunder 2, you can do so here [Broken link to the Game Room]. If you can beat the first level boss, you can post about it on our public forum! How about that?

I couldn't find my copy of Rolling Thunder 3 (yes, I have a physical copy of the game) to get a cartridge scan. So I scoured Google Images for two hours before settling on this image, which I find much more soothing and calming than RT3 itself. Ride on gentle symbol of our nation (by which I mean overwrought Vietnam-era imagery).

Rolling Thunder 3 continued the trend of awfulness, setting the bar for horrible, unnecessary video game sequels. Truth be told, RT3 isn't really that bad of a game, it just isn't the Rolling Thunder I've known and loved and adored more than any woman who'd be bothered to associate herself with me. Naturally, if RT3 did not bear the name Rolling Thunder, I'd be forced to say that it was a pretty clever, smooth, albeit unoriginal platform shooter with that arcade feel! As it stands though, if I were a host on a popular video game review show on the sadly now-defunct cable network TechTV, I would give the game a resounding one jiggle of my co-host's ample titflesh. As Rolling Thunder 3 was a pale knockoff of an original and clever great, you can read a pale knockoff of an original and clever great article here.

The Knockoffs

Much as Super Mario Brothers wasn't the first side-scrolling jumpy platform game, it certainly set the mold for innumerable clones, copies and pirates to grace video game systems to this very day, Rolling Thunder wasn't the first fluid, sidescrolling, multilevel, terrorist shoot-em-up with doors in which you could hide from terrorists for a moment or even pick up ammunition or weapon power ups. It was just the basis for most side-scrolling multi-level terrorist shoot-em-ups to grace video game consoles to this very day. Whereas the side-scrolling shooter paradigm is as deeply-ingrained in the video game psyche, three knockoffs come instantly to mind. Capcom's Codename: Viper, SunA's Rough Rangers and Bandai's Lupin III

Codename: Viper

Yes, I even have a Pysical Copy of Codename: Viper. Again, Why? The three bucks I spent on it would have been much better spent on say, half a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon or half a gallon of Rossi Sangria. What the hell is wrong with me?

What began with Rolling Thunder, eventually evolved into Codename: Viper. Long thought to be developed and published by International House of Mystery and Pancakes But Mainly Mystery - American Sammy (aka American Treco, aka ASC, aka SammyUSA aka Sammy, aka The Sammy), as Sammy has a long heritage of shamelessly ripping off other, more popular video games, re-branding them as their own and releasing them back onto the market as Original Sammy Creations (see Guilty Gear, Survival Arts, Trophy Buck, Ninja Crusaders). Now, those of us savvy to such things, we find that likening an actually pretty fun, albeit unoriginal game to Sammy is a pretty caustic insult. Especially as the game was made by Capcom, who we all know put the extra effort into each and every one of their titles, every one of them completely original concepts, never ever borrowing gameplay elements and graphic design sensibilities from previously-released games. No sir, games like Mega Man 5, Resident Evil 6 and Street Fighter Alpha 3 Turbo Plus Hyper Fighting Xyber Edition Gold 2010: the Final Fight - Unleashed were all original concepts with original art and original play mechanics which set them apart from every other game on the market!

So then what the hell was Capcom doing releasing a shameless copy of Rolling Thunder onto the NES? Probably for the same reason Namco released not one, but two shameless copies of Rolling Thunder onto the Genesis which were of course, Rolling Thunder only by virtue of nomenclatural resemblance.

The difference between Codename: Viper and Rolling Thunders Two and Three though was simple and concise: Codename: Viper was actually really fun. Walk around in the jungle, shoot at terrorists, rescue hostages, find ammunition behind doors, hop, jump, shoot. It's all quite compelling, even in this world of Metal Gear Solids and Eternal Darknesses and yes, even Beyond Good and Evils. Then again, didn't someone write a Pac-Man novel once? Where Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man (in a flight of pre-nuptual bliss) totally went to Las Vegas and went through a weekend of debauchery and cocaine and ended up aborting Pac Jr. into a casino toilet? God that was a great book.

SunA's Rough Ranger

Rough Ranger is like bonghits. It fixes everything. Depression? Fixed. General Agitation? Fixed. Intense Unfocused Horniness? Fixed.

Yes. Yes now this, my friends, is more like it. Words alone cannot describe how much I simply adore Rough Ranger. You see, I'm not like most people. It's an indisputable fact, one you've no doubt gathered from reading my works here on the gayass inter-web-cyber-web. I have a weird manner when I recall places I loved to hang out at as a kid. In Carson, there was this joint called Rico's Pizza, which was the home of the pizza so fucking huge it couldn't be delivered. That motherfucker was like fifty eight inches of awesomeness. They called it the Party-Sized Wopcore Facefuck or some such nonsense. Or I just called it that, the slices were huge. And they always cut the thing into like fifty little tiny slices, each about three inches wide at the crust, so it was always drippy and droopy and got everywhere. You had to eat it with a fork and knife. But Jesus, was it ever a Big Old Novelty Pizza. In the fifteen years the place was open, we ordered a grand total of One (1) of the stupid things, it was for my sister's seventh birthday party. I was twelve and in middle school. Now, all of those... crazy noun-things might be classified in some manner as 'crystallizing agents' for cherished childhood memories to be fostered. Fact-of-the-matter is, I hated that party. I hated (past and present tense) my sisters, my mother, my aunts and uncles and everybody in my family pretty much. It's been written that 'Familiarity Breeds Contempt.' I'd like to make a little amendment to that most erudite of literary wisdoms: 'Closeness Breeds Hatred' But, at the risk of turning the Three Fingered Salute back into another fucking whiny girljournal page complete with my pretentious musical tastes at the bottom of this article, I'll just get to the point I tried to make four hundred words ago. I don't recall things like casinos and bowling alleys and pizza joints in the same way most people do. Quality of food, quality of gaming experience, smell of the rented shoes, salad bars, buffet lines, watered-down cocktails.

NOW! Let's GO rescue HER! Yes, the Rough Rangers little shiela had been kidnapped from under their very noses! Nice to see that the're all ready-and-willing to strap on arms and fight, fight, fight for their faceless, gray-haired old matron in high-heels rather than, you know, just stop the hopping, police-helmeted terrorists from busting into their kitchen and kidnapping her in the first place. Jesus, at least Billy and / or Jimmy Lee were inside the Garage when their shared, unnamed girlfriend was kidnapped by Shadow Gear Gang.

Oh no. I remember these places by the line-up of arcade cabinets they'd have tucked back in the far-off dusty corners where even the bravest man fears to tread. I can remember these places by their line-ups of arcade cabinets. When I was nine, Rico's lineup was Strider, Tiger Heli, Rampage, Road Blasters and Golden Axe. Over the years, Strider was replaced with Stunt Driver, Tiger Heli was replaced by Yet Another Top-Down Shooter Game (honestly folks, after you've beaten Jackal, you just don't have it in you to remember any more fucking top-down shooters, whether they be space-shooters or sky-shooters or ground-based jeep shooters, they're all the same when you get down to it) and Golden Axe was replaced by 720°. But Rampage... In the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Two, was replaced with Rough Rangers.

I cannot begin to ascribe to you how much I utterly adore Rough Ranger. I'll go right ahead and say that it's much, much better than Rolling Thunders Two and Three, and I might actually go so far as saying that it's on par with the Original in terms of greatness.

Now, Rough Rangers isn't Great like the Original Rolling Thunder by any graphical or animation virtue, no the graphics in Rough Ranger are merely a step above those in the Tengen NES port of the game, the gameplay is still rough, the jumping physics feel odd. There's an abundance of cheap deaths, cheaper enemies, enemies that actually get tougher as you progress in the game. Man, Rough Rangers is hard. The part toward the end with the pixel-wide platforms to hop on while you're being assaulted from all sides by the little running dudes on fire is downright unfair and the stupid boss battle is vague, unclear and ends up eating more quarters than the one in Midway's seminal NARC.

So, why do I like it? Why in the hell would I like that stupid game? Well... that's a goddamned good question, given developer SunA's track record (I'm certain that Brick Fighter, Hard Head, Spark Fighter, Star Man and Ultra Balloon were all original, clever arcade games, but unfortunately, no underdog pizza joints in rural Nevada happened to come about aone of their cabinets and had them installed back in the dank, dusty room where the games were held, now did they?). What could actually prompt a man to actually sit here in his comfortable roly-chair and type into his keyboard that he actually likes Rough Ranger more than Rolling Thunder 3?

Who Knows?

Do they even read these things before burning
off their ROM boards?

Everquest Online Adventures: Frontiers Beta Yay for Everquest! I really really enjoy this game! It is the most fun any human can have with a video-entertainment box! I just wish all games were as fun and clever and not-lame! Huggles @ the Everquest Online Adventures Development Team! Yaaay!

Delta Force: Task Force Dagger Task Force Dagger is a swell little game! I hadn't had as much fun since I won a big silly stuffed tiger at the state fair! I really enjoy winning! Fun things are very fun! Task Force Dagger is pretty fun! You should read about it maybe! Yay for Task Force Dagger! Yay for big stuffed tigers!

Pachinko Sexy Reaction One can never say enough about Pachinko Sexy Reaction. Of all the fun games I've played, Pachinko Sexy Reaction is simply about the funnest! More games should have opponents who are happy to be beaten by you! The bad guys in Rolling Thunder were not happy to see you beating them! Bad Rolling Thunder, Bad!