There are games that can be appreciated in the grand scale of things and some that can only be appreciated in the relative scale of their format. Thorium Wars is one of those latter types of games.
On its own merits, Thorium Wars comes off as a throw-back to the earlier days of 3D gaming. If the game play footage were observed with no indication of when it had been made, it would be understandable to think it was some obscure early Playstation 1 title or even a 3DO game. The graphics are blocky in the way that 3D games of that era were, with not much detail to the surroundings or enemies beyond just enough to tell them apart. In fact, almost everything about the presentation feels so much like it is from that period, it almost seems on purpose. All it is missing are the digitized, live action cut scenes that would have been the major selling point at that time.
The game play itself is not bad, if somewhat bland. The controls are spread out in a way that is universally functional for the different land, sea, and air crafts being used, though it takes a little bit to adjust to and three different buttons for the camera controls seems somewhat excessive. The stages themselves are fairly straightforward, you drive from point A to point B, blowing stuff up along the way until you fight a boss. After the first two levels, a minor exploration element is thrown in to hunt down items to upgrade different weapons and aquire new vehicles.
Thorium Wars is also very hard. While the bottom screen functions well enough as the radar to warn about approaching enemies, certain stages block its use and many of the levels contain annoying, small, fast enemies that constantly respawn right on top of you and can easily dart around your fire.
In the grand scale of things, Thorium Wars is an utterly average or slightly bellow average game. However, on a more relative scale, there is something very notable about it that should be appreciated: As a DSiWare game, there is currently nothing else quite like it on the service. If nothing more, Thorium Wars demonstrates that the potential for a more traditional action game on DSiWare is there... but like the chemical element that makes up half of the game's title, that potential is still not fully unlocked.
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