Thor
It’s hammer time again. No not some baggy trousered rapper, but the God of Thunder, back once again to try and make a decent game. This time, on the 3DS.I slid my Thor: God of Thunder cartridge into my 3DS with heavy sigh. After reviewing the hero’s namesake on PS3 I thought I would have to play through the immense turd that was that game all over again.
Thankfully I was pleasantly surprised, the game actually, as it turns out is better than it’s bigger brother. I know, I can’t believe it either!
Thor: God of Thunder is still your hack and slash game, following the plot of the recent film rather loosely. You take your bearded hero and smash you’re way through levels, with the help of your unpronounceable hammer Mjölnir, and a bag of tricks up your sleeve. So far, so PS3.
But, there is something that sets this game apart from the travesty of the next- gen versions, although the game is the same, the developers have either taken notice of past reviews or figured out that the other games sucked a large one.
First up, they have managed to fix the biggest problem I had with the PS3 game. The hammer, before it didn’t feel solid, it was loose and any impact you may have felt from downing your foe was lost – as the hammer just felt week and pathetic, not the tool of a god for sure. In the 3DS version the hammer lands with satisfying thud, it feels like your hitting the enemy rather than missing them as it felt in the PS3 version.
The combos also seem to work better, with a large move list cleverly mapped out to the 3DS’s limited button set. Although it does take a while to get used to, and you’ll have to suffer some finger cramp, other than that it works well.
The touch screen however, is not as good. You have your ‘specials’ placed here and breaking up a combo being carried out via the buttons to then hit a button on the screen is awkward at best, and the 3DS touch screen is not that sensitive if you don’t use the stylus, so clumsy is the word I would use.
The remaining thing that makes this better than the HD versions is the actual gameplay, Red Fly Entertainment seem to have trimmed the fat and streamlined the game into something that does away with pomp and ceremony and simply keeps the game to what it is, a scrolling beat em up.
It’s a shame then that Red Fly couldn’t have done something a little more exciting with the environments, especially at the start where you’re just travelling along the same looking corridors and the same basic platforming sections. There was a point where I didn’t realise that level 2 was level 2, I thought it was Level 1.2, still can’t complain to much, it is the 3DS after all, not a power house of a machine.
Thankfully, there are some flying sections to break up the monotony, but they feel tacked on, to make use of the 3D feature, or so you would think. BUT, the 3D is a bit duff, it all looks flat with about as much depth as a Katie Price, nothing like Pilot wings, which uses 3D very well.
The ‘flat’ 3D sensation spreads to the rest of the game as well. At first, you do notice it, it’s quite nice, if you haven’t played a 3rd person game in 3D before you will think its kind of cool, but after a while, you forget about it being there; I had the slider turned up to the max and still didn’t really get the sense I was playing a game in 3D.
So then, Thor on 3DS is better than Thor on PS3 – I find it hard to believe myself. Unfortunately, the essence of the game is the same, identikit enemies and corridors and, if you choose to, constant tapping of the Y button will get you pretty far. But, that is missing the point, the combo system is quite good and would be worth you getting the finger cramp, and investing the time to learn all the moves. And there are lots to learn thanks to a wealth of unlockables.
Thor is an enjoyable game, probably more so for the younger players than the older ones. It does lots of things right that its older brother had done wrong, but that doesn’t make up for repetitive gameplay that has plagued both games. It’s also a rubbish demonstration for the 3DS’s selling points. So, not a terrible game then, but not a brilliant one either. I think you could have more fun putting on some baggy trousers and singing ‘Can’t Touch This’
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