Continuing with our Amusement Expo 2024 coverage, let’s touch on a new piece by Amusement Source International – a surprise by the name of Thunder Attack. Read on for a look at this new gun game:
Background
Though this is Thunder Attack’s first appearance out in the States, it has been rumbling under for a little while in China and Europe. While it’s hard to tell for sure, it appears that the game was made by Huoshi Entertainment, who showcased it at GTI Expo last year.
Huoshi have been responsible for the much-rebadged Top Gun – brought to the US by JET Games as Quick Shot and Europe by Electrocoin as Skill Shooter – with the latter company indeed quietly testing an unlocalized cabinet of Thunder Attack out at their Funland arcade in London not too long ago. They didn’t bring it to EAG in January though, so its showing at Amusement Expo has served as our first proper look.
It’s possible that ASI are however carrying another version of the game here by a different Chinese manufacturer, e.g. Nitto Amusement; it isn’t especially easy to verify the exact original source of many pieces coming out of the mainland at the best of times.
The Cabinet
As with any arcade game, the first thing you notice is its cabinet. In terms of this one, it does stand out. There’s the LED backlighting on the art & 3D lettering, a 65″ screen, padded personal seating, card vendors/readers, and of course, giant chaingun-like guns. Those made an immediate impression when I stumbled across this, previously expecting to see Zombie Crisis instead (which wasn’t at the show).
Here’s a photo I took of the cabinet…then had to remove the background.
The guns are pretty nice, reminding me of a Korean piece from way back called Vulcan-M. That game used spinning chainguns, ejected bullet shells (inside of a protected transparent case) and smoke. This does not have all that but it still has a giant gun, blast shield, air compressor feedback, and a rattling piece that makes it look like a real machine gun cycling through bullets.
Perhaps one of the most surprising aspect of this is the price – under $10,000. These days, such pricing is practically a unicorn. But that’s not all!, as the sales pitch goes.
The Cards
While I may be forgetting an example, this is the first gun game I can recall that uses scannable cards. There are only eight, but each will insert that specific weapon into the game as a power-up. I’m not 100% certain how the recharging/reloading of these work, but it did appear that you could scan them in at any time. Up to four can be used by the player, and switched between with the gun’s thumb buttons.
Boxes of 540 cards are available from ASI for $135 each (plus freight). One unique aspect is that there is no card authorization system (like you see with Minecraft Dungeons Arcade) – so if you have a bunch of cards left over, you can recycle them into the machine. Just be sure to not place any bent cards in there, as I’m sure that would jam it up.
The Game
Admittedly, I didn’t spend a ton of time on the game, not much beyond the video below. There are four levels, which seem to be standard light-gun fare. I didn’t catch if there is any voice acting, however, as most of the time I walked by it, it was being played during a boss fight..
As I bring up in the video, the boss battles are really long and feel unfair. Perhaps its more the latter making them feel longer than usual. There’s no way, even with the powered-up guns, to take out all of the circle targets when the boss attacks. Not even with two players trying at it. Since you take damage for failing to wipe all of those circles out in time, it becomes a point of frustration.
I also noticed whilst rewatching the footage I took that there are often enemies who require a bit of damage to take out, but they attack you before you can dole out enough to take them down. The game does at least have some adjustable difficulty settings though, so perhaps that changes this aspect in some way. Still, it feels like it could use some more balancing changes for those points.
Did you get a chance to play Thunder Attack at Amusement Expo? If not, would you be interested in seeing this on location?
