Ordinarily straight-laced free-to-play WW2 fight sim War Thunder is well-known for its foolish April Fools occasions. This yr, it’s an impressively effectively fleshed-out UFO fight state of affairs named Earth Thunder. With a HUD filled with incomprehensible alien textual content and directions that aren’t rather more useful, two groups of UFOs conflict above a besieged modern-day metropolis. Being superior alien craft, they’re able to working on the land, within the air and even underwater, every with completely different assault modes, making for an arcadey however very uncommon battle. The occasion runs till April fifth, and Below: A trailer FROM BEYOND.
The Earth Thunder state of affairs is fairly easy stuff. A capture-and-hold mission with two groups, and 5 respawns per participant. The UFOs themselves are impossibly agile in comparison with War Thunder’s planes, capable of activate a dime and hit targets with pinpoint accuracy with their beam lasers. Of course, as you’re taking pictures at tiny UFOs within the distance it’s onerous to land a killing shot until you handle to catch an enemy from above or beneath. Your UFO’s powers change if you’re near the bottom or underwater, too, making for an unpredictable rhythm to fights.
When you’re near-landed (you may’t crash), your UFO strikes slower however with extra agility, and is protected by a defend. You additionally get a railgun cannon to attempt your hand at sniping. While underwater, you may’t use your major beam cannon, however you may hearth a shotgun-blaster, though its photographs are solely brief vary. You can even hearth homing torpedoes underwater to catch enemies unawares, though they’ll simply as simply hit the ‘fly up’ button (R and F on the keyboard management top by default) to get them out of the water, the place neither shotgun blasts nor torpedoes can comply with.
I really feel there’s a bit extra subtlety to the UFO fights than there have been in a few of War Thunder’s previous joke-modes, just like the mech-battles they’ve had beforehand, or the My Little Pony rainbow-powered dogfights even additional again. It’s a contemporary, enjoyable mode and value taking part in a spherical or two. You launch an Earth Thunder match by clicking the emblem within the top-right of the hangar display screen.
The Earth Thunder occasion runs till April fifth. War Thunder is free-to-play and could be discovered on its official page here or on Steam.
