The Thunderstorm Umbrella is a weapon developed by the Agency in Secret Agent Clank. It is a lightning gun disguised as a small black umbrella that can discharge powerful lightning strikes to be released from its tip at enemies.
The weapon can be purchased by Clank upon reaching Venantonio for 35,000 bolts. It can be upgraded up to the Lightning Rod at V4 with use, which deals damage when an enemy hits Clank using melee. Two mods can be purchased for the weapon in challenge mode: the Xeno's Capacitor Mod for 100,000 bolts (which passes charges from the first enemy hit to nearby ones) and the Thundercloud Mod for 200,000 bolts (which launches a thundercloud at enemies when charged up long enough). The Proto Lightning Rod can be purchased in challenge mode.
Characteristics[]
The Thunderstorm Umbrella is a simple black umbrella, with somewhat exaggerated metal tips, that deals damage by controlling the weather.[1] The Lightning Rod has two concentric transparent rings in its membrane, and uses a robot's own body as a giant capacitor, storing electric energy in the metal of its chassis; any other creature that touches the wielder and breaks the circuit will be hit by a lightning storm.[2]
Gameplay[]
ThunderStorm Umbrella gameplay.
The Thunderstorm Umbrella can fire simple burst of electricity, which are rather weak and not very effective. But, when charged up by holding the fire button, it can deal much more damage and hit multiple enemies close together. It only uses ammo upon hitting an enemy, although the charged up shot takes three ammo rather than only one. Although potentially powerful, the long charge up time (indicated by the tips glowing with electricity) make it most ideal against large or medium enemies, and more wasted against smaller ones.
The Lightning Rod's upgrade to counter melee foes is not that helpful either, as the retaliating damage is not instant, and far too weak to be worth relying on, as when an enemy is close enough to hit Clank with melee he should be using a melee-based weapon instead.
The Umbrella is the only Clank weapon to be able to acquire two mods: The Xeno's Capacitor Mod for 100,000 bolts will let attacks expand to nearby enemies for some light damage, making it useful against groups of weak enemies as even a non-charged attack will trigger the mod. The Thundercloud Mod for 200,000 bolts makes it grow a small thundercloud upon charging the Umbrella, although it does not actually appear to do anything in practice.
Behind the scenes[]
The weapon is referred to as the Lightning Gun in the High Impact Games Treehouse.