Thunder Hoop Longplay (Arcade) [4K]

Game Info
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Developer: Gealco
Publisher: Gaelco
Year of Release: 1992

Game Review & Impressions
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Gaelco is a fascinating oddity in the world of coin-op arcade games.

Sandwiched between the likes of Atari and Midway in the West, and Sega, Data East and other Japanese gaming giants in the East, this Spanish studio produced some of the quirkiest arcade games of the 1990s. I'd recently completed a longplay of TH Strike Back, only to discover that it was, in fact, a sequel to Thunder Hoop. The game had impressed and intrigued me in equal measure, so I decided to go back and check out the prequel first.

At its core, Thunder Hoop is a run-and-gun shooter, with a spoonful of platforming stirred in for good measure. The general theme is a pastiche akin to Dragon Ball Z, with anime-styled cutscenes, although this doesn't carry over to the game itself. It's as if the developers looked at coin-op games through the lens of the early 1990s computer game development, and this was the result. It looks and feels much more like an arcade-style game you'd find on the Commodore Amiga (or maybe even a home console), rather than anything you'd find in an actual arcade.

As a result, Thunder Hoop is a fascinating oddity. Taken on its own merits, its a decent game, boasting some impressive graphics, but the game design and platforming feels somewhat alien to the world of coin-op. The audio, as is typical for Gaelco releases, features low quality samples ripped from other sources, including what sounds like Michael Jackson's Black or White. There are also sound effects which sound oddly similar to Risky Woods, plus other home computer games from that era.

This charming eccentricity became less pronounced in Gaelco's later games, presumably as the studio became more proficient at designing games for the coin-op market. This leaves Thunder Hoop as curious oddity that just doesn't quite belong, and it's precisely this reason why you should go and play it.

Information & Trivia
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Video Notes
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Chapters
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