My Arcade Rolling Thunder#(Retro Player)

This mini arcade machine is larger than some others, making it much easier to use. The machine looks just like the original arcade cabinet, stickers and graphics look great.Powers up with a USB cable or batteries and the coin slot lights up, pressing it starts the game which is a nice touch.The game looks and plays just like the arcade and is great fun. The controls are good, the removable joystick is nice if you prefer to just use the dpad, and the buttons are big and positioned well enough for adult fingers to use easily.

Item arrived wouldn't turn on, or wouldn't work when I used a cable.How can you send out products when they haven't been tested!Returned another one as it had the same fault!Where is the quality control!Instead, all they want to do is make the product as cheap as they can to make the most profits!

This is one of the best My Arcade Micro Players there is. Smooth presentation and playability - granted that it's a NES rom.

This is the fifth of these MyArcade micro-player games I've bought, but waited until they were under £20. I have Mappy, Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man, Bubble Bobble (OK, I paid more for that one) and now Rolling Thunder.They're all neat little cabinets you can sit on a desk or hold to play if your hands are big enough. They genuinely look like mini-arcade cabinets, made from plastic panels with all the right vinyl printed decals on the sides and marquee. The screen is bright and clear and in full colour. They take 4 AA batteries or a USB lead for power (not included, and there is no rechargeable power cell inside). The coin-slot door is a big on/off push-button. Controls are a short joystick (which can be unscrewed to use the D-Pad underneath), a Jump and a Fire button, and smaller Start and Reset buttons. On the back are volume controls and a headphone socket, and the battery compartment hatch. The sound always defaults to on when you switch the unit on, but it does not actually make any sounds until you start the game.In this game you play a smart-casual-dressed male secret-agent infiltrating an enemy base (I trust the invitation was not 'black tie'), with the intention of rescuing a fellow female agent (who, incidentally, you play as if you've ever seen Rolling Thunder 2). You walk to the right through a scrolling level shooting the various hooded enemies that attack you. There are often overhead balconies or stacks of boxes to jump onto, and the enemies jump up and down or crouch behind boxes to avoid your shots. You can press the Jump button to leap over boxes, or use Up+Jump to reach the higher levels. Also Down+Jump do drop down again. Later in the level are features like stacks of old tyres that you (and enemies) can crouch and hide inside. The enemies walk in from the sides of the screen, or pop out of doors dotted around the level. Some try to walk up and hit you, others are armed and shoot back or throw grenades. You can take two hits before losing a life, but some of the enemies also need multiple shots to take down. You have a limited number of bullets but can replenish these by entering certain marked doors (push up to go in), and also pick up extra weapons the same way.As other people have mentioned, most of the MyArcade units do not run the original arcade game code but a modified Nintendo 8-bit NES version of the game. The biggest difference this makes to some of the oldest games (like Pac-Man) is that the screen is horizontal rather than vertical. On a later game like Rolling Thunder, which ran on 16-bit arcade technology, the differences are more obvious. First the in-game sprites are reduced to a few colours each. Different types of enemy still have distinctly coloured outfits, but a lot of the variety is gone. Also there are no longer railings on the upper balconies for the hero to vault over, so the animations are cut back. Scrolling isn't perfect - straight lines skew into diagonals as the game refresh rate gets out of step with the screen refresh, and scenery blocks that go off the left can briefly re-appear on the right before new bits of the level are drawn in. The game only records the most recent high-score and that is lost when you turn it off or press the Reset button. But it does have a password system to skip previously completed levels.Having said all that, the arcade gameplay is pretty much intact. This always was a tough game, and was made awkward by the fact that you cannot shoot up or diagonally, and cannot shoot while jumping, making enemies on different levels hard to shoot before you run into them. This version is no different, although the limitations of the NES version mean there are fewer enemies on-screen at the same time, making things a little easier. Also, when you enter a door to replenish your ammo, enemies can walk right up to the door to strike you the moment you emerge - again, an issue with the original game as much as this version. My chief concern was, with such a small screen, would you be able to see the bullets when the enemy fire at you? And the answer is yes, the graphics for enemy fire are quite clear.This is the first of these games I've played with a scrolling display rather than single-screen levels, and as well as the typical NES scrolling glitches mentioned above, the joystick control did not hold up to being pushed right a lot. It didn't fail exactly, but I found my character would occasionally stop moving. It seemed that the slightest easing up on pressure on the joystick would cause it to stop. So I either had to keep pressing on the joystick a bit harder, or remove the stick and play with the D-Pad instead. And to be honest, the game was more responsive that way.I think this just highlights that for the later games in this range (Bad Dudes, Caveman Ninja, Heavy Barrel and this, Rolling Thunder) using an 8-bit home console version of the game just isn't good enough. Pac-Man, Mappy etc. are fine but these others are stretching the concept too far. And the NES version of Caveman Ninja is a very poor shadow of the arcade version. Bubble Bobble will always be fun, but again the limitations of the NES version show up in flickering sprites. The latest additions, Contra and Space Invaders, do appear to run the actual arcade games (as does the slightly larger multi-game 'Namco Museum' unit), but the prices are far higher.So, if you're a fan of these mini-arcade machines and of Rolling Thunder, there's a lot to like about it. But for anyone else, I'd say stick to Mappy for your running-around police-related arcade-antics. That's still my favourite as it's a fun and varied game. Of the other units, I recommend Galaga over Galaxian as again it's the more varied game, and Ms. Pac-Man over Pac-Man as it has several different maze layouts. But in all cases, I wouldn't spend more than £20 as they're not really the authentic arcade games, however neat and appealing the cabinets.

Nice and portable, great value and great fun, just as i remember it

Not arcade rom..but good collectable