Thumper

Thumper is far more than a simple, stunning rhythm game: it's an astonishing vertigo at crazy speed that messes up with your brain in a kaleidoscope of psychedelic colors and industrial tunes, an unforgettable trip into a sinister and mesmerizing dimension that thanks to PlayStation VR becomes real. Simply put, an instant classic.

Positively hypnotic in PS VR, this is an ideal showcase for your new virtual reality kit. [Christmas 2016, p79]

Thumper is a right hook out of nowhere. It’s the right combination of speed, bizarre visuals, music, and difficulty that makes you want to replay it after the credits roll. The single button and stick controls also makes it eminently accessible to everyone, but difficult to master. Come for the bizarre visuals, stay for the even more bizarre bosses.

Own PS VR? Then Thumper needs to be part of your gaming collection. Don't own a PS VR? Thumper still needs to be part of your gaming collection. It's that simple. [Dec 2016, p.88]

Built upon the same cradle as many other rhythm games, Thumper is one of the best experiences we've had this year. Feeling a bit like Audiosurf, the game pushes the player to go beyond everything he knows about his reflexes, while being hypnotized by the greatness of the soundtrack/visuals combination.

Thumper is a fast-paced experience that will challenge you. It plays well in virtual reality and looks great. Long story short: one of the better - if not the best - PlayStation VR launch games out there.

Thumper is easily the best game I have played on Playstation VR. It’s fresh, exciting and leaves you wanting more. It’s amazing to think that this title was created by a two-man development team of ex-Harmonix employees. If there’s one game you should show off you to your friends when they come over, it’s definitely Thumper.

If you’re a fan of rhythm action games, Thumper is amongst the most intense, pure, and singular experiences within the genre, and its release for the PSVR should make it utterly essential for anyone that owns Sony’s headset.

Thumper is an incredible assault on the senses when played in virtual reality. The speed at which you have to turn corners and hit notes in a stunningly designed world makes for an intense and enjoyable ride. Any PlayStation VR owner should pick it up, even if it’ll make you want to go to bed after one level.

Thumper is one of my favorite games this year, simple yet challenging, visually stimulating, and excellent sound use. Easy to play, hard to master is the familiar phrase that comes to mind.

Thumper isn't just a great PSVR launch title, it's a great game overall. It doesn't pull any punches, and is relentless in its 'rhythm violence' and that makes it one of the most satisfying games out there. Now to try and S rank these songs.

Thumper's unique brand of "rhythm violence" should be experienced by every fan of rhythm games. It's an audiovisual delight that has been paired with challenging gameplay, and it creates such a captivating experience. While I definitely think it's a better game when played on PlayStation VR, regular PS4 owners will still find a stellar game here. Just one that is slightly more difficult and not quite as engrossing.

Thumper makes an incredible case for the future of virtual reality. With an incredible level of quality paired with a reasonable price of admission, this should absolutely be one of the first titles that anyone interested in making the most out of their new PlayStation VR headset buys. With blistering speed and intensity to go along some easy to learn, difficult to master gameplay mechanics, the future of rhythm games – and, by extension, virtual reality – is bright.

The best new rhythm action game for years, with a perfect blend of gameplay, music, and a frighteningly oppressive atmosphere.

Thumper is a great rhythm action game, with strong visuals, fantastic design, and more speed than Keanu Reeves on a bus rigged to explode.

You’ll spend ages playing through the different levels and adore every single step. The music is great, the visuals are better and everything comes together perfectly.

Thumper’s brutal, breakneck speed and precision-based musical action kept me entranced for all nine of its bizarre, nightmarish stages, which contained enough nuanced high score-chasing tricks to demand several replays already.

Thumper thrives due to the way it marries speed, simple controls, and mesmerizing atmosphere. It's far more convincing in VR, where you're enveloped in the game's space and free of distractions from the outside world, but it shouldn't be ignored by those without the appropriate hardware. Thumper, no matter how you play it, is too good to miss.

Thumper wraps a trip through spectral hell, the sensation of travelling down an interminable barrel of a gun, and a pounding rhythm game into an articulate package. It condenses to a sensory rampage that feels as concerned with survival as it is as consumed by perfection. Hitting notes on highway isn't a new concept, but performing it under the threat of phantasmal horror, and somehow empowering progress, positions Thumper as a modern apex.

Thumper is a fun and visually aggressive, face paced rhythm survival game. As a space scarab you’ll enjoy banking and weaving your way through hours of increasingly intense levels. It doesn't make use of any mechanics that are unique to VR and plays identically on the screen as it does on the headset, however the novelty of being in VR enables a more focused experience and heightens the game's purposeful intensity. [Tested with PlayStation VR]

Thumper is electrifying, and very, very close to being the perfect harmony of inspired visuals and fist-pumping audio. It’s ability to dazzle and awe with its wondrous visuals is matched only by its ability to hook you in for a relentless, downright intoxicating ride.

Breakneck speeds, industrial music, and a shiny metallic beetle in a cybernetic reality come together to make one of the most original and difficult rhythm games in years.

It is fast. It is unforgiving. But it always stays fair. What starts as a fairly simple variation of rhythm games soon becomes a hypnotic struggle to stay in the zone that will keep you motivated and frustrated at the same time.

Thumper is a unique game that combines infinite runner mechanics, rhythm and a strange setting, which takes great advantage of the use of PSVR.

A nice surprise for those who have or don't have PS VR. A game as easy to play as it is deep and extremely addictive.

There’s something to be said for the sensation of Thumper’s mid-game, where survival is the goal, ignorant of whatever score comes along with it.

Fraught, oppressive and tense, Thumper has been built to a singular vision - and one we can certainly respect, if not always enjoy. [Christmas 2016, p.117]

Thumper is a unique rhythm game that can scare and hypnotize you and, from the hellish second part of the game, discourage you. But if you're looking for a clever and worthy - and painful - challenge, you can trust it blindly.

A glorious assault on the senses. [Issue#180, p.43]

Blisteringly fast and relentlessly unforgiving, Thumper will keep you engaged for hours.

Thumper is a very good rhythm game, if obscenely difficult, and that should make it appeal to any fans of the genre. But it’s a lot more than that, too; it’s an experience unlike any other, one that pushes the bounds of pure audiovisual immersion even with its standard 2D display – to say nothing of its VR capabilities – and that makes it something that I think everyone should at least try.

Thumper is intense, killing and a nightmare, but when it ends you want to do it all over again. There is not a lot of variety when it comes to action, but the gameplay keeps things interesting.

If you’re able to omit some problems with its dark, aggressive rhythms and with some curves impossible to see, you have one of the best games of the genre from the last few years.

Thumper takes a little from music games, racing games and infinite runners to become one of those VR titles you need to try.

I'd still recommend Thumper, though. Readily. But I would also advise not to get too wrapped up in fully finishing it. This road is long and winding and brutal. It might just drive you mad. [NOT tested with PSVR.]

Thumper’s oppressive atmosphere is amazing. Soundtrack, abstract visuals, breathtaking speed and palpable collisions build tension you would never expect from a runner/rhythm game. It’s a very interesting experience, but every time I removed PS VR after playing Thumper, I was completely worn-out by this intense, perpetual assault on my senses. [13/2016, p.77]

Thumper isn’t going to revolutionize rhythm games, nor is it the best example of VR out there, but it’s still worth taking a look at — just be sure to listen to your body as you play. If you feel fatigued, battered down, or depressed, then take the headset off and get some air. The overall experience will be better for it. Trust me.

Thumper has some great rhythm action to offer but the start setting and oppressive tone often makes it feel like what Rez might have been like if the Germans had won World War 2.