System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £15.99
Comfort Rating: Yellow (Mild Movement)
Genre: Music and Rhythm
Input: Gamepad, Keyboard & Mouse
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG
Description: Thumper is rhythm violence: classic rhythm-action, blistering speed, and brutal physicality. You are a space beetle. Brave the hellish void and confront a maniacal giant head from the future. Scream down the endless track and crash through punishing obstacles with simple, airtight controls. Hurtle forward, master new moves, reach overwhelming velocities and survive epic boss battles. Every crushing impact is interwoven with a pounding original soundtrack. To reach synesthetic bliss, you must go through rhythm hell.
Review: Thumper is a rhythm action game that sees to racing down trippy neon light tracks as what looks like a chrome coloured space beetle! (Oh, don’t worry it does get stranger), while music is at this game’s core there is also a pretty aggressive rail shooter underneath complete with multiple enemies and even the odd boss battle. But yet the game is also the usual musical affair and consists of pressing a button at the right time. Of course, later on in the 9 levels, things get a lot harder.
This is a game that you need to concentrate on from the start of each level to the end of it, requiring you to have lightning-fast reactions. There are things to collect, things to avoid and things to shoot (by returning the ‘beat’) in every level and you just never know when they might all show up. If fact, sometimes the gameplay is so fast you don’t even notice it has turned up until it is too late! Each level is very much like a rhythm game, going in time with the techno, trance tune. There are beats and dips, slow points and fast points, but only the tempo will determine what the track ahead will look like. It is just a shame you can’t play it with your own music instead of their choice.
Thumper is one of those games that makes a lot more sense when you are actually playing it. It’s fast, hard and a joy to look at and play. But sadly it is also pretty pointless in VR. This is a good game anyway, it didn’t need a VR update nor does it look much better for it, at the end of the day the gameplay is so fast that you are always looking in front of you anyway because turning away, even for a moment will cause you to crash. If you have ever played Thumper normally, I wouldn’t rush out and buy this ‘new version’ game. But if you haven’t and don’t mind paying for a fairly short experience this will reward you with a few hours of seriously satisfying fun.
