THUNDER TIER ONE

Another tactical shooter? It sounds so ordinary that in order to attract attention to a new project in this genre, you need to at least somehow stand out from the crowd, in which there is always something to choose from: action movies for single passage and designed for multiplayer, in a fantastic setting and in a realistic, complex and arcade. Quantity, however, does not always translate into quality, and it is not so easy to find a really high-quality shooter even in our time full of releases.

Thunder Tier One from the current developers of PUBG – the Korean studio Krafton makes a claim to be called precisely quality. It seems to be nothing unusual, but there is a nuance – we have a shooter with a top view.

Player cover
Assembly Model
It’s just that there are a lot of fighters, there are also a lot of tactics, and there are enough games with isometrics. But the combination of all these components is rare. Isometric tactics are usually turn-based, like the famous XCOM, or its language will not turn out to be called a shooter, despite the fact that the ability to shoot is present there (as in the recent War Mongrels). And in general, isometry in action games is, as a rule, a sign of spinal entertainment like Alien Shooter and the like. But in the case of Thunder Tier One, everything is serious – the developers tried to master the genre of tactics.

This is noticeable from the first minutes of acquaintance with the game, for example, in the main menu, select the character customization section. There you can find a gentleman’s set of any such project – many models of weapons and equipment with a listing of the characteristics of each sample. Armament differs not only in appearance – rate of fire, muzzle velocity, recoil, accuracy and convenience are taken into account, and equipment affects the speed of movement and the weight carried by the fighter.

Still, I want a greater variety of weapons, even if in battle the difference between models of the same class is not so noticeable.
There are no clearly defined classes, but the customization options are generally quite standard: you can choose a primary and secondary weapon, take grenades, special devices like a mine or a first-aid kit; change clothes, body armor and backpack. There are also all kinds of body kits, such as sights, silencers and laser sights. There are not so many barrels – only three dozen, counting pistols, and the list of special devices can only surprise you with the presence of a camera for looking under the door.

In general, nothing surprising, but it is worth considering that the set of equipment directly affects the behavior of your character on the battlefield. This unobtrusively pushes you to build your own build for the chosen combat style (“presets” can be saved to quickly switch between them).

For example, my favorite option is a heavy machine gunner with high armor protection. He is not afraid of a shortage of ammunition, with due luck he is able to survive a couple of hits, and he himself can conduct a long fire to suppress, flooding any suspicious bush with a hail of bullets.

I also tried its complete opposite: a weakly protected, but very fast scout with an automatic rifle equipped with an optical sight and PBS (as a rule, this is AS Val). He, of course, cannot provide such a density of fire as a machine gunner, but he has no equal in maneuverable combat, when you can defeat the enemy by leaning out from behind a corner for a moment or going into his back. The optical sight, on the other hand, significantly increases the viewing range – a good help to counter ambushes.

Instead of a map, there is an overview from the UAV. In this mode, you can also command allies.
The customization system in Thunder Tier One, of course, does not reach the heights of the same Escape from Tarkov, but it easily provides the necessary minimum of variability. Those who want more variety (the game has a hard time with this even in terms of cosmetic items) can only hope for modifications – Thunder Tier One is friends with the Steam Workshop.

So much tactics
This genre has one indisputable plus: such games are easy to manage and at the same time give a very pleasant shooting experience. TTO is no exception: a child can also master it – with the help of WASD we run, we shoot with the mouse, we use several keys to interact. On the other hand, the authors praise the realism of battles in every possible way: the characteristics of weapons and equipment are reflected on the battlefield – for example, bullets can break through obstacles.

However, it is easy to see that realism here is in second place after spectacle. The developers skillfully exploit the players’ craving for “tactics”: spectacular poses of fighters, talks on the radio with shouts about reloading and reports on destroyed enemies (and generally decent soundtrack), a damage system that assumes death from one or two hits, and similar small ones, but atmospheric little things make a rather cinematic spectacle out of an ordinary “shooter”.
The night vision device does not help much in the dark, but with it the game looks much more atmospheric.
Oddly enough, this does not come at the expense of tactics, which are more than enough here. With one caveat – if we are talking about a network game.