Thunder Tier One test on the PC from igamesnews.com

KRAFTON Inc is best known for processing PUBG which are known to have been sold from whole pallets. The editor and developer doesn’t want to leave the war theme of his main foal and this month is offering a top view tactical shooter that responds to the name Thunder Tier One. What should one finally give back their nobility letters to this unique genre, which has been forgotten today?

Elite unit seeks AI

Thunder Tier One: can tactical co-op play find its audience?

With Thunder Tier One, you command an attack unit composed of 4 members including you who are responsible for carrying out various missions to contain a terrorist threat. As a self-respecting elite group, your mission is to secure information, interview targets, destroy weapons caches, or bring hostages to safety. You can use both force and infiltration to carry out your operations, but this requires good coordination from your unit. In fact, you only control one character with the keyboard keys, the rest of the commands you give your squad are carried out through context menus. Your unit’s range of motion and action is quite extensive. One can hook a door, set explosive charges, another can heal you or help an injured and fallen colleague. You can also escort some of your destinations so you can clear your way to the next extraction point. In short, all the actions that you can take can be taken by the members of your unit.

Overall, the control of your group is quite intuitive and that’s a good thing, because it is clear that artificial intelligence is not really ingenious and unfortunately your allies tend to remain undetected in the event of an attack. Since the game takes place in real time and the triggering chain commands cannot be given in chronological order, it is often difficult to keep the cautious approach as long as possible.

. Thunder Tier One relies on a realistic approach to the genre, so that the noise of your troops, but also that of your opponents, will be manageable. For example, some waves tell you that an enemy is nearby even if they are out of your field of vision. This field of view is also crucial because it determines your line of fire. While the title opts for a top view, the display of enemies on the screen is determined by your character’s field of view. So if there is an enemy behind a box a few feet from your character, you will not be able to see them.

An unnecessary solo, a real multi-potential

This creates a certain not uncomfortable tension that prompts you to carefully observe the map with your drone before charging forward with your head bowed, especially since your squad and enemies are particularly fragile. In fact, only a handful of bullets are useful to bite you into the dust. Caution is therefore required, your positioning is essential, especially since the recording, which you control with the mouse like a twin stick shooter, is not always of exemplary precision due to the partially distorted perspectives of the camera from above. And unfortunately, as mentioned above, leading the group can be a chore at times and it won’t be uncommon for you to prefer to leave your companions aside to sort things out on their own, even if this could make a difficult situation even worse that at the slightest alarm, loads of reinforcements arrives. Unfortunately, the stealth approach is not promoted enough and the real-time aspect of the game too often prohibits really coordinated attacks.

. If the sensations are not unpleasant and we forego the 9 short missions of the single player campaign, the interest lies elsewhere and we have to turn to multiplayer so that Thunder Tier One takes on a new dimension.

Indeed, you have a PvE mode that allows you to repeat the various missions of the campaign in the company of 3 friends and in this situation the pleasure of the game is much more present. In addition to having a very complete and customizable equipment window, the scope of which depends on the points you get from completing missions and which prompts you to carefully prepare your deployment, on-site communication is essential, as is planning. Hence, there is a ping system that allows the squad leader to indicate the ideal position of group members and the fact that they are in front of a door to decide which member will open it, which will throw a lightning grenade and which will enter the premises to destroy the threat are pretty exciting. The tactical potential of Thunder Tier One is therefore much more noticeable in online cooperation, and even if stealth is again not very well possible on an entire mission, the coordinated attacks and military advances are reproduced very well. as long as you encounter a group eager to play within the rules. And if you don’t like collaboration, you can always try your hand at PvP mode, which is undoubtedly the least interesting and which has a handful of maps to play on in domination mode or traditional deathmatch, much more expendable and which has tendencies to encourage camping a little too much.

Even meager content

If Thunder Tier One benefits from a solid base and a very successful atmosphere in the near future, especially thanks to an excellent sound design that makes you feel like you are really in the middle of the battle, it will also suffer a little too easily as it is. And the developers seem to be aware of this by clearly showing their willingness to allow modders to create their own content.. As we envision and hope that creatives will come up with missions that may be more complex than the base game, it’s pretty unfortunate to have to rely so much on the community to flesh out their content. And the risk with this principle is that if the public doesn’t follow, the mods won’t follow either and Thunder Tier One could gradually be forgotten without revealing its full potential.

Conclusion

Points fortresses

Un excellent sound design
Real tactical potential in collaboration
Very extensive equipment window
Different environments

Weak points

Solo not very exciting because of poor AI
Page with lean content
PvP dispensable
Discreet approach not desired / not sufficiently possible

Aside from the few inaccuracies of the target or the allies’ artificial intelligence that make solo progression quite tricky, Thunder Tier One is sinning for the time being due to its lack of content. By relying on the community to add new maps and missions to the game, KRAFTON Inc risks their game being forgotten, which would be unfortunate if you take the pleasure of completing missions in collaboration, whatever tactics, Communication and planning requires to be done “correctly”. A real potential that has not yet been fully exhausted and fans of this unique genre may find it a little too thin.