In Desert Thunder, you are controlling a tank and are the last line of defense to save a country from terrorists. The story is very cliché with no redeeming qualities.

Let’s jump straight into the problems:

The menu. The mouse is sporadic and gets “stuck” on random parts of the screen. I’ve never seen anything like this in a game before. There’s no way this wasn’t noticed before releasing.

The controls. The tank has sluggish controls with an annoyingly huge turning radius. Going in reverse while turning doesn’t reverse the controls (like backing up a car) so you have to unnaturally keep holding the direction you want to go while backing up. Also, the turret DOES NOT turn 360 degrees. What kind of experimental tank design is that? It really hinders the ability to shoot enemies.

The gameplay. It’s terrible. There are 8 missions total. Two…Two of which are 20 minute forced defense missions where you go around in the same loop shooting the same guys until the timer runs out. The other missions have you driving through the desert shooting tanks and people until you reach the end. After the first mission I realized you didn’t even need to shoot anything that doesn’t immediately block your path. Just keep driving until you reach the end, that’s it. The gameplay is also extremely repetitive. Play the first level, you’ve played them all. Same enemies, same tanks.

The game tries to mix it up adding power-ups along the way to your machine gun and turret. They do adjust the damage of your gun, but I never bothered to get them after initially trying them out. The terrible tank controls combined with the small hitbox for the power-ups just leads to frustration. Hitting enemies with your regular gun does just fine.

The AI. It’s bad. Sometimes they’ll notice you, sometimes you have to hit them first until they engage you. Even the final boss tank is laughably easy. Funny enough, the hardest enemy in the game are the mines! They are generally hard to see and deal a ton of damage. Watch out for those :)


Pros
+Short (trust me, this is good)
+Voice acting isn’t terrible
+Bullet drop gives some strategy to the game

Cons
+Glitchy mouse in menu
+Bad controls
+Terrible gameplay
+Two 20 minute forced levels out of 8 total levels
+Repetitive enemies and level design
+Bad AI
+Cliché and empty story

Probably the worst offense this game has is the price. The current $9.99 price is insane. Stay away from this game. If you must have it, wait for it in a bundle or free giveaway.

2/10 Very poor

In Desert Thunder, you are controlling a tank and are the last line of defense to save a country from terrorists. The story is very cliché with no redeeming qualities. Let’s jump straight into the problems: The menu. The mouse is sporadic and gets “stuck” on random parts of the screen. I’ve never seen anything like this in a game before. There’s no way this wasn’t noticed before releasing. The controls. The tank has sluggish controls with an annoyingly huge turning radius. Going in reverse while turning doesn’t reverse the controls (like backing up a car) so you have to unnaturally keep holding the direction you want to go while backing up. Also, the turret DOES NOT turn 360 degrees. What kind of experimental tank design is that? It really hinders the ability to shoot enemies. The gameplay. It’s terrible. There are 8 missions total. [b]Two[/b]…[b]Two[/b] of which are 20 minute forced defense missions where you go around in the same loop shooting the same guys until the timer runs out. The other missions have you driving through the desert shooting tanks and people until you reach the end. After the first mission I realized you didn’t even need to shoot anything that doesn’t immediately block your path. Just keep driving until you reach the end, that’s it. The gameplay is also extremely repetitive. Play the first level, you’ve played them all. Same enemies, same tanks. The game tries to mix it up adding power-ups along the way to your machine gun and turret. They do adjust the damage of your gun, but I never bothered to get them after initially trying them out. The terrible tank controls combined with the small hitbox for the power-ups just leads to frustration. Hitting enemies with your regular gun does just fine. The AI. It’s bad. Sometimes they’ll notice you, sometimes you have to hit them first until they engage you. Even the final boss tank is laughably easy. Funny enough, the hardest enemy in the game are the mines! They are generally hard to see and deal a ton of damage. Watch out for those :) [b]Pros[/b] +Short (trust me, this is good) +Voice acting isn’t terrible +Bullet drop gives some strategy to the game [b]Cons[/b] +Glitchy mouse in menu +Bad controls +Terrible gameplay +Two 20 minute forced levels out of 8 total levels +Repetitive enemies and level design +Bad AI +Cliché and empty story Probably the worst offense this game has is the price. The current $9.99 price is insane. Stay away from this game. If you must have it, wait for it in a bundle or free giveaway. [b]2/10[/b] Very poor