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A Sound of Thunder Review: Should You Buy?

Sound of Thunder Cover

A Sound of Thunder Review: Should You Buy?

A Sound of Thunder created for Gameboy Advance was released in 2004 and published by BAM! Entertainment. The main protagonist is Travis Ryer who must kill the present-day mutated threats, solve various puzzles and return to the past to fix the problem. The game mainly follows the storyline of the original film. The creatures are imaginatively rendered and stimulate your imagination to imagine “what if?”. With that, is A Sound of Thunder worth buying?

Storyline of A Sound of Thunder

A Sound of Thunder Screenshot
Protagonist Travis Ryer stealthily waiting.

In the future, time travel has been perfected. Offering dinosaur hunting expeditions to the past where adventurers can track prehistoric monsters. To take part in the adventure in A Sound of Thunder there are three rules that must be followed: Nothing can be changed, nothing can be left behind, and nothing can be brought back. 

In one fateful incident, a butterfly is accidentally killed which changes the course of evolution. As the timeline catches up with present day an assortment of mutated creatures begins to appear. These creatures are the result of a natural selection process that is different from the one we evolved from. To correct this situation a group is assembled to go back and figure out what went wrong.

Time Is of The Essence 

A Sound Of Thunder Screenshot
Travis Ryer battling dinosaurs.

To eliminate these creatures you will have various weapons at hand which include rifles, a grenade launcher and a grenade that stops time. A lock-on targeting system ensures that you will be able to negotiate the top down, 3D perspective favored to view the environment. Aiming has been simplified. It doesn’t take much skill to take out the threats which in some cases is a good thing since some of these beasts hunt in packs and will surround you.

Time is of the essence in A Sound Of Thunder and it’s a commodity that you don’t have much of. The environment literally changes around you as time waves reach the present day. During the puzzle phases you will have to move boxes around to access areas safely and throw switches. As the time waves change the environment, certain paths and areas will change causing you to adapt your strategy to the new environment. It’s an interesting concept that works and really forces you to panic.

A four-player Deathmatch is available for only the price of a handful of Link cables. It’s a really good mode with smooth moving sprites and an environment that has just the right number of obstacles and open areas to see your opponents. The area is somewhat confining, but it does the job. There’s even a co-op mode in which one player can drive a vehicle and the other can shoot at the creatures.

Closing Reflection

The core of the gameplay tends to get a little repetitive but there are enough diversions to keep it from getting boring. The characters are well rendered. They animate very smoothly in real time. There’s not much background music but when the action starts it kicks in and really helps to get the blood pumping. In all, this game, while a little more retro than modern, is worth taking another look at. A Sound of Thunder in all is worth taking a deeper look into, a rental at the least.

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