Rolling Thunder logo

Amiga
US Gold
£19.99

Dapbe bap bap (Short instrumental rendition of The Cosby Show theme). Arrrrribba, everrrrrybody samba! Baddies these guys may be, but they sure can dance. What am I talking about? Just one of the many bad points of the latest never-ending line of coin-op conversions from US Gold.

You, in the guise of Agent Albatross, must rescue the ravishing Leila from the gritty paws of the Geldra organisation. Set over a variety of left to right (and sometimes up and down) scrolling areas, you have to shoot, jump and duck your way past trillions and squillions of Geldra's henchmen, who for some reason are remarkably similar to Klu Klux Klansmen. You are armed with only two weapons. Your trusty handgun and your even trustier machinegun.

You begin with the positively huge collection of 50 handgun bullets but no MG bullets. Naturally, these soon disperse themselves into the bodies of any passing hooded villain, so a quick search of the signposted doors that line the corridors replenishes your bullets and, if you are especially good this Christmas, you may be bestowed with some MG bullets. Cor!

An examination of the April issue will reveal to you that the 64 version of RT was none too wonderful. In fact, it was downright awful. It is a good thing the Amiga is capable of better things, you say. RT in 16 bits could never be terrible. Sorry to upset you, guys, but it is not so hot. As you can probably see from the screenshot on this page, it bears a striking resemblance to the arcade. That is where the similarity ends. First thing to hit you is the appalling scrolling; it is slow and very jerky. The actual graphics are none too well defined either, and a few more frames of animation would not go amiss.

No, please, do not ask me about the sound. It is quite nice, granted, but I do not think a continual samba-type tune is really needed. Talking of sambas, which I rarely do, when the baddies kill you by punching you, they do a funny little dance which, delightful as it is to watch, does tend to take the edge off the game a little. This is US Gold's first foray into the Amiga scene so maybe we should not expect too much. At the price RT represents a poor investment.