Playing Typhoon Thompson (Amiga)

Entry posted by Cybergoth October 16, 2009

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Hi there!

Six years after Choplifter, Dan Gorlin returned to form with Typhoon Thompson:

The full title is "Typhoon Thompson in Search for the Sea Child", which is also a good summary of your mission already. The sea child was kidnapped by a bunch of sea kobolds, so the sea spirits equipped TT with a boat and weapons to fight them, sending him out to return the child.

In an inevitable comparison with Choplifter, the gameplay actually does share some aspects, even when considering that TT happens in a full blown 3D environment: First you shoot the kobolds sea homes, then when they're coming out, you shoot their vessels. Succeeding here has them dropping into the water, where you can collect them. After clearing a level of all kobolds, you can exchange them for goods stolen from the sea spirits.

The game has excellent and very precise analog mouse control. Once you get used to it, it's pure fun to zip around in your boat. The title music is good, in game sound effects even better.

The graphics are marvellous for their time. Everything runs totally smooth and showcases some excellent animation. The engine even runs some funny story-telling intermissions between the levels. The 3D is very fast and the action furious during the first 4 levels, but then there's so many objects on the screen that it significantly slows down. In fact, my game came to a sudden halt in the 5th level, with an error message saying "Ran Out of Free Objects", so I can't tell wether this game has an ending or not.

I think this was one of the very first ation games unleashing the full potential of 16-Bit computing power in order to go beyond the design limits for 8-Bit action games.

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another 3D Action game in the form of Afterburner.

Greetings,

Manuel

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r_type2600 88

Posted October 17, 2009

Thanks for unearthing this one !

Really one overlooked gem. One of the few original and memorable games of the ST/Amiga era.

Like those other 16bit classics (Sundog, Dungeon Master, Oids, Lemmings - can't think of many more), it did actually also integrate addictive gameplay and did not simply rely on impressing through its audiovisuals like so many publishers started to do in that period.

What's particularly impressing about this one is the very well thought out control mechanism, making best use of the unusual serial controller,e.g. the mouse, delivered with those computers.

(Thinking about it - the same applies to the other games mentioned above.)

In short, a perfect blend of audiovisuals/gameplay/control: an integral entertainment experience!