Keep in mind the Kinect? Again when it was generally known as ‘Mission Natal’ I had some fairly lofty hopes for the tech. To be honest, these hopes have been most likely made a little bit extra lofty by some tech demos that have been, properly, let’s simply say… barely economical with the reality.
When Kinect got here out it was a giant bag of damaged, however, there have been some video games on there that got here near greatness. I had a whale of a time with Fruit Ninja Kinect and would usually whip it out (ooer) at home events, whereas Ubisoft’s Little one of Eden was an authorized banger.
And that leads me on to Thrasher, the religious successor to Thumper, which has simply launched on Meta Quest and Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. As you may see on this week’s episode of VR Nook, Thrasher eschews Thumper’s industrially soundtracked uphill toboggan experience of doom and as an alternative opts for a gameplay loop that’s one half Fruit Ninja and one half Little one of Eden. With a little bit of Jeff Minter-y psychedelia thrown in for good measure too.
Identical to Thumper, the management scheme for Thrasher is pretty easy. Just one arm is required to play the sport, which you utilize to swipe a sci-fi stylised electrical eel across the display screen with the intention to smash quite a lot of shapes. Additionally like Thumper, the gameplay mechanics are drip-fed to you slowly over the course of the sport. As you progress, hazardous crimson shapes that you want to keep away from are added into the combination, together with power-ups that do issues like decelerate time or grant you a cost capacity that allowa you to interrupt by these pesky crimson obstacles.
It is a good gameplay loop, and a beautiful, straightforward management scheme that’ll make the sport totally accessible to each veteran gamers and full VR newcomers however, on the similar time, it by no means felt as compelling to me as Thumper did. The boss fights in Thrasher really feel fairly underwhelming and, whereas the music is atmospheric sufficient, I felt myself lacking Thumper’s immense, adrenaline and nervousness inducing audio.
Please do keep in mind nevertheless that the ideas on this web page are simply first impressions, primarily based on the primary hour of the sport. It might be that I modify my thoughts after some additional time with it and that some sudden, extremely loopy twist to the gameplay will emerge part-way by. Even then although, I do really feel like Thrasher goes to wrestle to interrupt freed from Thumper’s shadow – a typical case of adverse second album syndrome maybe? Should you’ve performed Thrasher, let me know what you consider it within the feedback under!
Video up high not working for you, otherwise you’d fairly watch it on YouTube in the next high quality? Concern not I’ve acquired you lined with the useful video embed under! What a hero I’m, please bathe me with all of the reward and kisses that I rightfully deserve.
Watch on YouTube
