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Thumper

Started by Shay Chaise, October 11, 2016, 05:58:37 PM

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Shay Chaise

Described as a 'rhythm violence' game, which sold it to me. Some reviews have really sold the horror elements, and I've seen references to existential dread and despair. It's a rhythm game, so it's quite intriguing. Out on Thursday in the EU but I bought it via the US store. Looks and sounds industrial and glossy in a horrible way, like futuristic cosmic nihilism.

Shay Chaise

OK, I've now played twenty minutes. It's definitely got a visceral sense of impact. When you hit the timing right on a boss sequence and the whole level goes BBBBVVVVVVVV and then you slam the beam in the boss's face, it is pretty beefy. The music is basically everything I don't listen to normally, like goth industrial wannabe miserable edgy serial killer type humourlessness, but it does suit how fucking ugly this game is. It reminds me of a kind of dark vaporwave thing, that must be a thing like, I've heard some darker vaporwave albums, but pretty ambient. This is a bit like Jam City in its sterility. It's a really hard game as well because you basically have to die multiple times to get the timing down, but you have infinite lives, you just keep playing til you get it right or top yourself. It is quite depressing and makes me feel glad I'm not a cosmic metal beetle on a fucking luge path flying towards the creator's flaming ineffable essence.

Junglist

Put in an hour just now. Its been my most anticipated game of the year, and it matches that hype. So dark, intense and brutal. You literally get one mistake, then if you fuck up once more, you're done for. It opens up relatively simply, teaching you the mechanics as you go and then HOLY SHIT things go whacko. The sense of speed is unreal.

Have a feeling this will be a new addiction as chaining everything to a perfect S rank feels so good.

Shay Chaise

Bump, because this comes out on the Switch tomorrow.

This was actually by far the most impressive game I played on PSVR. It genuinely gave me an overwhelming but quite addictive sense of dread. The music and visuals and sound effects and sense of tension combine to produce something quite powerfully uneasy. I kept trying to get super perfect runs on the first couple of levels and ended up never playing it again once I returned the PSVR because I didn't want it installed on my system. Even the icon unnerves me. Anyway, I'm not sure whether this will work as well as a portable experience (to change my tune for once) because the sense of an enormous ineffable nightmare will presumably be much more intense on the telly. It might mean I play a bit more of it, though.

Great game, intense but not necessarily fun. It's as metal as computer games get, though.

Kelvin

I really liked the trailer and the gameplay I've seen on youtube. Will definitely be buying this, even though I've never played a rhythm game before.   

Obel

Thumper is one of my favourite games. It's pretty uncomplicated in terms of gameplay, just directions and a button, but they get a lot of legs out of it. It's a great little package, a marriage of visuals and gameplay that work together perfectly. One of the more immersive games I've ever played and a quite unusual sense of dread you get while playing it. I want to play it in VR real bad.

Shay Chaise

Just played this in the bath, drinking a beer, after some really good news.

Now I feel terrible but exhilarated.

QRDL

In VR it's exhilarating. I was very very bad at it when I tried, but kept coming back to feel that adrenaline surge. At the moment I don't even have time to play on the screen, but I'm sure I'll get back to it at some point.

Twed

Visceral is also the main word I've used to describe it.

This and Puyo Puyo Tetris are actually my favourite Switch games. I think I've finally realised that I enjoy immediacy and direct gameplay over cinematic immersive experiences in gaming, after 28 years of playing games.

Kelvin

I've been playing this the last few days. Initially I wasn't too impressed. It seemed fun, I suppose, but nothing to write home about. But now that I've reached the third set of stages, the experience has ramped up considerably, and I'm enjoying it far more. After playing for a while, you just kind of hit a rhythm, sometimes passing through multiple stages without messing up, coming over all zen, then instantly fucking up horribly and bursting into smithereens.

I can only imagine how cool it was in VR. The sheer intensity and atmosphere can't possibly compare on a TV screen. 

Shay Chaise

I'm quite weird in that I haven't really played much past the third stage. I always just play the first stage and try to perfect it. You may not know this just yet but when you do a perfect corner, it makes a 'schlink' kind of noise. One day I'll get a completely perfect run and top the leaderboard but until then, I'll just replay it incessantly, get to around section 12, blow one corner and feel like eviscerating myself.

Penfold

I'm not sure with perfect corners if you have to press x (or Switch equivalent) while turning to get the noise or just turn into them. I'm also up to level 3.

Twed

I thought my technique of pre-empting everything by almost always holding down the action button (realising it occasionally like a bass drum pedal) was smart, but apparently it's a bad habit that should be unlearned for the best runs. I guess perfect turns require you to hit it as it comes? I do wish this was a bit more explicit, but then I appreciate the way the game trains you to feel what's right.

Kelvin

The game is already so hard, I couldn't even dream of perfect runs. It's just nice to have a few A and S ranks in early stages.

Shay Chaise

For the perfect turns, you can hold down the action button in advance, it's just about the timing of the actual turn. Give it a try and you'll get it. Schlink! It has to be at the exact moment, but accounting for the fact that the beat has a bit of swing to it, I feel. I could be wrong there! It's very satisfying when you hit one but makes the whole thing very very tense. I did get about 240k once on PS4, I messed up about three turns or something, just got regular turns but I think the potential high score is in the 270k region.


Thursday

I've stopped for a bit because area 5 was too hard for me.

Shay Chaise

I heard that almost nobody gets past Stage 5, in fact. I should really give the actual game a go, rather than my weird limited version.

Kelvin

Quote from: Shay Chaise on May 30, 2017, 08:56:00 PM
I heard that almost nobody gets past Stage 5, in fact. I should really give the actual game a go, rather than my weird limited version.

I finally finished stage 5 last night. It's definitely one of those games where you think you'll never beat a level, but you play and play, until your eyes are bulging and your hands are sweaty, then suddenly you enter your own personnel bullet time and nail it. 

Thursday

Yeah I had another go last night and got further into it, plus I was playing handheld when I was first on level 5 and I think you really need a bigger tv to be able to judge things better. It's also mainly a problem with the opening stages that throw a difficult mechanic at you, but then it stops it using it for a while so it's fine until you get to the boss where you actually have to use it again.

It is funny how you adapt to the game. When you first start it up after not playing for a while, it just seems impossibly fast, much faster than you remember it being, but then you start to adjust.

Kelvin

Quote from: Thursday on June 03, 2017, 02:33:26 PM
It's also mainly a problem with the opening stages that throw a difficult mechanic at you, but then it stops it using it for a while so it's fine until you get to the boss where you actually have to use it again.

I like this about it. You learn the techinque, then it goes easy on you for a bunch of levels, slowly building up in intensity, before finally hammering you with another bastard test of skill, or a boss.

Obel

Thumper requires completion so you can experience the madness at the end.

Beagle 2

Fuck it, I'm bumping this. What an incredible game. I'm properly tingling all over after just a couple of hours of play. Not sure I get the dread thing, it just makes me grin from ear to ear. Maybe it's because I was supposed to write a report tonight and I didn't and I hate myself and I just proper felt like careering into hell at a thousand miles an hour and firing off big meaty whoomphs into the face of evil and that's what I want to do tomorrow at work when I see Alan at the end of the corridor and he wants to know where my report is WHOOMP SHOOOMPH CHAAH

Worth it in case you did what I did and ignored it for ages because it looked pretty limited for £15 - get it you fool.


The Bumlord

This chat is tempting me to reinstall it and take my PSVR out of storage, the cably bastard.