''4 Wheel Thunder'' is a racing game developed by

Kalisto Entertainment Kalisto Entertainment was a French video game development company founded by Nicolas Gaume at age 19. They are mostly known for developing ''Fury of the Furries'' and the ''Nightmare Creatures'' series. The company began as Atreid Concept in 199 ...

and published by

Midway Games Midway Games Inc., known previously as Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known as simply Midway, was an American video game developer and publisher. Midway's franchises included ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage (series), Rampage'' ...

. While the game had been in development for some time prior as a separate title, it was eventually decided to rebrand the game into Midway's ''Thunder'' series.

Gameplay

Having 12 tracks across six locations, ''4 Wheel Thunder'' consists of races with vehicles like monster trucks,

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, or buggy. All of them have different racing features. The goal is to defeat the opponents by coming to the finish line as fast as possible. There are shortcuts on each track which can be taken to drive faster through certain sections, and the players can use a special turbo button for a speed increase. The starting position is always the last place, which forces the use of blue and red turbo boosts scattered throughout the tracks. Being an arcade styled racing game, triggers are used as the accelerator/brake, and the analog stick to navigate the vehicles. In the

single-player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the course of the gaming session. A single-player game is usually a game that can only be played by one person, while "single-player mode" is usuall ...

segment, there are three game modes: Championship, Indoor/Outdoor Arcade and Practice. In Championship, the player has to be either first or second to finish in order to unlock more tracks, while Indoor/Outdoor Arcade includes a series of races with specific differences between the tracks (outdoor ones are longer, and indoor ones have more sharper turns). The additional mode section offers play modes for a multi-player game with two people: balloon, bomb, bomb race and tag battle. In the bomb mode, explosives are tied to the vehicle, with an objective to transfer those to the opponents by ramming them. Bomb race is a variation of bomb, except it has to be all done within a time limit. In balloon mode, collecting balloons gives an extra time with a winning condition being either winning the race itself or collecting the most balloons.

Reception

The game received "favorable" reviews according to the review aggregation website

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

. The game has been praised for its realistic graphics and fun gameplay, but criticized for its high difficulty level. Midway's influence has been met with mixed reactions, with claims that the game suffers from an "identity crisis" due to elements of the ''Thunder'' series being implemented toward the end of the development process. Jeff Lundrigan of '' NextGen'' said that the game "has far too many flaws for its slim gameplay value."

References

External links

* {{Thunder series 2000 video games Dreamcast games Dreamcast-only games Thunder (video game series) Video games developed in France Off-road racing video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games scored by Frédéric Motte Kalisto Entertainment games