PlayStation VR First Impressions

[SvennoJ]

First impressions of Thumper:

Very first impressions: Well this is kinda bland and boring but it quickly gets better.

You're speeding down a roller coaster track and only need the left stick or d-pad and X to get throught the levels. It's a music rythm game, each level adds another kind of obstacle and stages gradually get longer and harder with quick successions of jumps dodges and corners. Higher levels get more stages and each level has 1 or more sub bosses and an end boss which require perfectly executing a few patterns to take them out.

The good thing is, when you time your actions right they fall inside the beat of the music and add flavor to the thumping background track. After a while you really get into zone with everything speeding by including animated scenery to distract you. It becomes quite a challenge later on, I completed the first 4 levels so far, the 4th one took me over an hour. It's not easy to recover from mistakes as the track keeps speeding on but you always instantly restart from the last checkpoint when you run out of lives. It definitely has that one more go appeal.

The graphics are solid, however it doesn't do much with the VR helmet. You never need to move your head so it's pretty much a stereographic 3D game. The glasses do help with immersion yet the experience would be the same on a (very) large tv with 3D glasses. It could also use more variety in the scenery and music. So far every level has had the same end boss mr glowy eyes

Overall, very immersive, great sense of speed, a bit claustrophobic in the tunnels now and then in a good way. Very colorful too.
Compared to Rez infinite this feels a lot smaller in scale, almost cozy.

Time for a little bit more Rez, just Friday left anyway, who needs sleep :/