If you grew up on One Must Fall 2097, Rise of the Robots or any fighting games at all, it’s hard not to be intrigued by Rising Thunder. And if you’ve been waiting on the sidelines for your dose of robot punch-ons, I’ve got good news for you.
Radiant Entertainment, a studio founded by Tom and Tony Cannon — the former of which founded the Evolution Championship Series annual fighting game tournament and the latter responsible for creating the GGPO netcode — has been enjoying some good vibes ever since the technical alpha for Rising Thunder went live a few weeks ago.
It’s a PC-only fighter that’s designed to break down the traditional barriers that prevent newer players from enjoying fighting games on a deeper level. Special and ultra moves are executed with a single button press, instead of a combination of movements and buttons, while the game runs on the latest version of the GGPO middleware for the best possible online experience.
Alpha invites have been going out in waves over the last couple of weeks to anyone who signed up on the Rising Thunder website, but the doors have since been opened up to everyone.
The change is the result of a successful network test, according to a tweet early this morning from the Rising Thunder Twitter account. “Rising Thunder Alpha is now open to all … play immediately — no waiting!”
It’s worth noting that Seth Killian, a long-serving commentator in the fighting game scene and former Sony Santa Monica developer, is also helping the Cannon brothers with the game.
I’ve played over 120 games and if you have any passing interest in the genre — especially if you’re the kind of player who has wanted to explore fighters more, but have been put off by the mechanical difficulties — I’d strongly recommend checking it out. You don’t even need a fighting stick or controller to properly enjoy the experience; it’s perfectly playable with a keyboard.
Comments
8 responses to “Rising Thunder Is Letting Everyone Bash Robots In Their Technical Alpha”
I like this!
I’ve spent a little bit of time in the Alpha. It’s a lot simpler than Street Fighter, especially on the execution side. There’s no quarter circles, no charge moves, and no more than 1-2 directions plus an attack button required to execute a move. Special and super moves are a single button – sometimes slightly modified by a directional input or holding the key.
Definitely worth a look if you’re remotely interested in fighting games, especially if you’re a novice.
It’s a lot simpler than Mortal Kombat X as well, which was accessible enough for me to even have a crack at a local fighting game tournament.
I’m having so much more fun with this though.
Anyone who has upgraded to Windows 10 have issues playing this game? It won’t run for me at all.
I opened it up yesterday without any trouble. I’ll give it another crack tonight and see if I run into any problems.
Yeah, I’m not having any issues loading/starting the game. Took a few goes to connect to a match but was perfectly smooth once I was in and didn’t dc midway through.
Turns out it was something to do with my nvidia drivers. It works now.
Have been playing this for a while and I’m kind of surprised they said the networking test was successful since last night was some of the worst network performance I’ve seen so far. The game itself is relatively fun (Chel main with Edge as a secondary) and definitely takes me back to my OMF 2097 days but it still feels a bit shallow in terms of strategic depth. I’m hovering around Bronze IV at the moment but most fights feel like deja vu. I’m looking forward to seeing where it ends up though, it has a lot of potential.
As someone disappointed by the poor PC port of Mortal Kombat X it’s good to have more to quench my fighting game thirst on the PC.