Thunderous Bam!

Bam! have unveiled A Sound Of Thunder which, like Ecks vs Sever and Reign of Fire, is based on a forthcoming movie that nobody has heard of. Borrowing more than a little from the amusing Jean Claude van Damme film Timecop, it's set in a near future world where time travel has become a reality. Unfortunately now a mysterious group known as the Global Entropy are running around in the past changing prehistory in an apparent attempt to destroy the world as we know it. Thanks to their actions, Chicago has become home to mutated dinosaurs, strange hybrid creatures and lethal vegetation. We're not sure how you'd tell the difference, but there you go. Anyway, now you are the world's last hope for a return to reality as you battle your way through Chicago to the time portal that has been causing all the problems. Sound Of Thunder will be debuting on the GameBoy Advance this autumn, with a novel sounding "time wave" feature that changes the layout of the levels as well as a mixture of dino-blasting action and time-critical puzzles to solve. The game will also see the first use of bullet time effects on the hand-held, with disruptor weapons that can slow down your enemies and leave you free to pick them off at your leisure. Throw in a range of wild weaponry and bizarre mutant monsters to slaughter, as well as four player deathmatch with a single cartridge and even a co-operative mode, and Bam! could be on to a winner. Following next summer will be a PlayStation 2 version of the game, developed by Computer Artworks, the company behind Evolva and The Thing. In addition to the same mix of big guns, big dinosaurs and bullet time effects being promised for the GameBoy version, the PS2 adaptation of the movie will also allow you to do a bit of time line disrupting yourself. Blow up a building in one time period and the area will be a pile of rubble when you travel back into the future. Destroy tobacco plants in the past, and there'll be no cigarette advertising when you get back to the present. Well, that's one way of dealing with Big Tobacco I guess... Related Feature - Sound Of Thunder screenshots (GBA)