I’m not entirely sure what to make of Black Thunder. It is a remake of Tony Crowther‘s previous game, Suicide Express, with slightly different graphics and released a year later by a different publishing house (Quicksilva).

The vehicle is now a car and the track is now a road, but you’re essentially doing exactly the same as in Suicide Express – zooming from left to right, avoiding obstructions, shooting on-coming and overhead enemies, and changing course to collect ammo/avoid collisions. Other than that, there’s not much else to it.

I’m not entirely sure why Crowther decided to make Black Thunder as it is not sufficiently different Suicide Express to a) cause any excitement, or b) not cause any disappointment… Maybe there were rights issues with the previous game and the programmer just wanted to free himself from that, or the game’s title caused him some issues, but Black Thunder might look like a cynical cash-in to a casual observer looking inward. We’ll give Tony the benefit of the doubt and not blame him, although – other than curiosity – there really is no reason to play Black Thunder over Suicide Express*.

*= Unless the original name of the game upsets you, which would be understandable under certain circumstances.

More: Black Thunder on Moby Games