Friday 2 November 2012

Nintendo DS game review : Thundercats


Today saw the release of a brand new Thundercats game on Nintendo DS and Sophie was over the moon to get an early release copy of the game to play with. To be honest, I wasn't sure what she'd think of it, as - being an 11-year-old girl - she's not a huge Thundercats fan, but she's been having great fun playing it.


The official blurb says : "Thundercats™ will be coming to the Nintendo DS™ system on November 2nd, 2012. Players will battle through action ripped straight from the new animated series as they run, jump, and slash their way through Mumm-Ra and his evil forces in an authentic Thundercats experience as the heroic Lion-O himself. Featuring exciting swordplay and huge robot battles, the intense and dynamic gameplay of Thundercats for Nintendo DS™ will have players dealing devastating damage with the Sword of Omens. Players will also be able to summon Tygra, Cheetara, Panthro, WilyKit and WilyKat from the hit animated series while collecting memorial cards as they complete their objectives throughout the game."


As a parent, I thought it was very noisy and just looked like pretty much any other shoot-em-up (or slash-em-up, in this case) game that I've ever seen. Sophie, however, thought it was really good and started doing impressions of Lion-O, waving around an imaginary sword and roaring ! She thought it was fast-paced and action-packed and loved the fact that you can summon friends to help you,  either using them to help you attack enemies or heal you if you're badly injured. To do this requires using tokens that you can find as you work through the game.


I watched her playing for a while and I thought the game had a very retro, overly simple feel, but this may be because I've been spoilt by the Nintendo 3DS and two-dimensional games seem old-hat now ! Or maybe the creators have purposely gone for a vintage feel to appeal to the original child-of-the-80's fans of the Thundercats show (like me).


The plot is very straightforward - you just have to keep slashing at your enemies until they keel over, which may sound violent but once they're dead, they just disappear, without a drop of blood in sight - and Lion-O doesn't have a huge range of movements to master (jump, double jump and a couple of slashes - that's it really) but it's been keeping Sophie amused for ages. After a totally rainy half term, it's been a welcome distraction, I can tell you !

star rating : 3.5/5

RRP : £24.99



Disclosure : We received a copy of the game in order to write an honest review.

Other reviews you may be interested in :

Mensa Academy Wii game review

2 comments:

  1. theres a blast from the past, this was one of my favourite programmes as a child!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Am not a huge fan of "slash them all" games, not only as a parent, but as a gamer as well (I have a DS myself, sometimes I use it on the tube)

    ReplyDelete

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