Thunder Wolves (2013)

Game score: 82%
Platform: Steam, PC


This game is such a perfect stress reliever! It offers hours of endless destruction without limits and is a lot of fun along the way. Flying around in a helicopter, armed to teeth with endless missiles and overheat-free cannon... priceless!

Thunder Wolves is simply being what it is - a brainless action flick that never gets boring. There are 12 missions + tutorial and they are all unique in its own way. Yes, you fly a helicopter and shoot at hundreds of enemy soldiers, structures, vehicles, aircraft, cannons, ships... but every mission offers something new. In one of them you get to fly a drone inside a cave. In the other you are shot down and have to escape in a tank. Later in the game you are carrying an armored vehicle and need to drop it on a beach for a D-day-like encounter. One mission makes you cover a field agent while he infiltrates a moving train. Some missions feature a gunner mode where you no longer fly the chopper but control the machine gun (LucasArts' old game Rebel Assault comes to my mind as reference for this). I am really really happy with the game makers' effort to keep this game fun throughout all of its missions and I think they did a great job at it. And when you add some hard rock tunes, adult language in communication between the pilots, lots and lots and lots of explosions... And that's what it's really about, isn't it? Thunder Wolves simply never gets to be boring. Not even when you replay the missions to get a better score and get more stars (these serve only for achievements on Steam).

 

There are 3 difficulty levels but neither is too hard, not even for a casual gamer. That's my only objection to the game, I just wish there was another difficulty level to lift the challenge bar high up and made it nearly impossible to complete. There's a lovely co-op mode that is really fun to play with a friend, but it simply screams for more challenge. 

The game has a total of 20 achievements on Steam: about 5 of them are easy to get and you will achieve them as you progress, while some require some effort. There's this guy named Pedro who hides on each level and if you find and kill him on all 13 - you get an achievement. There are also 25 hidden crates throughout the game and if you find them - you get an achievement. Other achievements are about collecting all stars on all levels and all difficulty levels, ramming 10 enemy vehicles, killing a miniboss by crashing into it etc. Overall, achievements are okay and will not ask you to do the impossible.

What else to say... I really enjoyed playing through Thunder Wolves. It took me about 12 hours to complete the game and get all the achievements and I had a lot of fun with it. With the current Steam summer sale, the price is down to under 4 Euros/USD and it's well worth the money. Have fun with this little jewel!

Final score: 85%