Jason, Author at Thumb Culture

14Apr

By JasonNo Comments

PC Reviews

Moviehouse – PC Review

Moviehouse by Latvian-based Odyssey Studios and published by Assemble Entertainment is a single-player tycoon game for PC that was released on the 5th of April. If you have ever wanted to try and run your own movie studio, then this is promising to be the game for you! Lights, Camera, Action! Steven Spielberg watch out! There is a new kid in town! Can I make a successful movie and reap the financial rewards? Let's find out! Gameplay Starting in the 80s with a small film crew, the setup in principle is easy to initially get your head around. The screen shows an isometric view of a square plot of land where all of your movie studio company will grow. Looking like a diorama, there is a small trailer where you will hire a writer before getting them to create your first script. You g...

be quiet! Pure Base 500DX PC Case Review

28Mar

By Jason2 Comments

Hardware & Tech

be quiet! Pure Base 500DX PC Case Review

Having played with a NZXT H510 PC case for the last couple of years, I was fortunate to check out the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX case. At around £100, it was on par with what the former case cost me originally. Would the Pure Base 500DX offer a nice upgrade without negating any of the features I already had? be quiet! Pure Base 500DX If you love your tech as much as I do, make sure to also check out the amazing be quiet! Silent Base 802 PC case review as well! Design Standing at 463mm high on its feet, 232mm wide and 450mm long, the Pure Base 500DX is slightly wider and slightly longer than my NZXT H510 case. Equally with the slightly larger size it is also a kilo more, weighing in at 7.8kg. Available in black or white, the futuristic-looking mid-tower PC case sports a tempered g...

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake – PS4 Review

14Mar

By JasonNo Comments

PlayStation Reviews

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake – PS4 Review

Bouncing recently onto console and PC comes SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake. Developed by Vienna-based Purple Lamp (Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated) along with publishers THQ Nordic, your favourite and sometimes annoying yellow sponge is back for a new adventure. Who Lives in a Pineapple Under the Sea? After blowing "magical" bubbles from an innocent-looking bottle of soap that had been purchased from a mermaid fortune teller, SpongeBob, along with his faithful companion Patrick, find out that they are in fact mermaid tears belonging to King Neptune. Cue craziness as buildings and characters are sucked into a portal. Can SpongeBob get all of his friends back and restore Bikini Bottom back to normal? Gameplay SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a single-player 3...

9Mar

By JasonNo Comments

Hardware & Tech

Edifier MR4 Studio Monitor Review

People that know me well know that I love gaming, music and playing my bass guitar. When I had the chance to try out the Edifier MR4 Studio Monitors I was ecstatic! While I have always been a bit dubious of quite how much bass small speakers can generate, I had high hopes that the MR4's would deliver. Let The Beat Control Your Body It's time to open up the box and take a deep dive into the world of Edifier. How will they perform? How compatible are they? Are they value for money? Read on and find out! Design At 288mm high, 140mm wide and 198mm deep, the MR4 studio monitors are a fairly decent size in comparison to some of the other desktop speakers I have navigated through. My desk isn't the widest in the world, however, they certainly didn't look out of place given that my Samsung...

27Feb

By JasonNo Comments

PC Reviews

Golazo! 2 – PC Review

Golazo! 2 is an arcade football game by Argentinian indie developers and publishers Purple Tree. It is a follow-up to the well-received 2020 Golazo! Soccer League. Back to the 90's Football Era! While there are many football games on the market, Golazo! 2 is an anything-goes version of the beautiful game where fouls and offsides do not exist. Created in Unity and available at around £11 on Steam, how would this indie title fair? Gameplay Right from the (kick) off, there is something very arcade-like with Golazo! 2. Remember the good old days when you were ordering some takeout, and while you were waiting for your order to be ready there would be some form of coin-op arcade machine in the corner? Well, Golazo! 2 would fit right in there. Instantly transported back to the mid-90s,...

be quiet! Silent Base 802 PC Case Review

27Jan

By Jason2 Comments

Hardware & Tech

be quiet! Silent Base 802 PC Case Review

While be quiet! has a huge following when it comes to its fans, they have also quite a diverse selection of PC cases. Ranging from goliath-sized high-end towers to smaller non-budget-breaking units, they each serve to give the best cooling possible as well as have a focus on acoustics to lessen any audible sounds. I as lucky enough to get my hands on the Silent Base 802 which sits in the middle of the range and is classed as a "premium" PC case. be quiet! Silent Base 802 AKA The Beast! I guess it is time to have an explore and transplant my PC innards so that I can give you a good practical overview of what working with a Silent Base 802 unit is like! Design The first thing that is noticeable with the be quiet! tower is the sheer size of it. It is a monster in comparison to my N...

24Jan

By JasonNo Comments

Switch Reviews

Toy Soldiers HD – Switch Review

Released on Nintendo Switch NYE '22, Toy Soldiers HD is an overhaul of the easily recognisable 2010 tower defense game by Signal Studios. Published by Accelerate Games, Toy Soldiers HD supports handheld, tabletop and TV mode. Toy Soldiers HD - Construct your Defences Carefully I was a big fan of Toy Soldiers: War Chest back in the Xbox 360 days however I haven't had the pleasure of playing an HD version of Toy Soldiers so far or on the Nintendo Switch. Let's get the band playing and move onto the battlefield! Gameplay There is something quite nostalgic when it comes to the Toy Soldiers franchise. Admittedly I have been so busy that there have been some old classics that I have simply forgotten to go back to. As Toy Soldiers HD loads you are greeted by a haunting male voice accompa...

13Jan

By JasonNo Comments

PlayStation Reviews

Need For Speed Unbound PS5 Review

Need for Speed Unbound is the latest in the NFS franchise and is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S as well as PC. Developed by Criterion Software, famed for their Burnout games, and published by EA, will Unbound be a winner or one to drive by? NFS Unbound - The World is your Canvas With a bit of a twist when it comes to graphics, I know that many have been a bit wary of how this iteration of NFS looks. The ultimate question is a simple one; Does it work and play well? Gameplay While Criterion has made some of my all-time favourite arcade racing games such as Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Burnout Paradise (A title I have somehow managed to buy since its launch in 2008 on almost every platform along the way!) NFS Unbound has seemingly ventured into a very vibrant and graffiti-cultu...

JBL Announces New Sound Bar & Quantum Gaming Headsets

5Jan

By JasonNo Comments

News & Updates

JBL Announces New Sound Bar & Quantum Gaming Headsets

Announced at CES 2023 Las Vegas today, JBL has unveiled their latest launches in gaming and home audio! 2023 Just Got an Audio Upgrade! Let's see what we can look forward to in the next few months! JBL Bar 1300 First on the list is the JBL Bar 1300! While we found out about the flagship JBL Bar 1000 along with the slightly smaller variants; 800, 500 and 300, back in 2022, JBL have once again raised the (sound) bar. Boasting a whopping 1170W power output, 6 up-firing drivers, an 11.1.4 sound system along with a 10" subwoofer, they have truly surpassed their flagship JBL Bar 1000. In comparison that had 880W, 4 up-firing drivers and a 7.1.4 sound system. Both systems come with Dolby Atmos®, DTS:X 3D surround sound and MultiBeamTM technology along with wireless satellite speakers, ...

22Dec

By JasonNo Comments

Xbox Reviews

I, AI – Xbox One Review

Our new writer Savvas writes his first review for Thumb Culture! I, AI was initially released in July 2020 by Satur Entertainment. It is a single-player vertically scrolling shooter that has used the classic scrolling shooter formula and added modern graphics. Scrolling shooters are a genre I have always been fond of, playing 1942, Super Airwolf and Metal Slug as a kid got me hooked, and it’s a genre that I still gravitate to. Going into the recently launched I, AI on the Xbox platform, I was pretty excited and hoping for that experience, so here are my thoughts. I, AI - Ratatat-tat your way to freedom! In I,AI you play as a self-aware AI who was created in a lab to develop weapons. Realizing this, they are now trying to make an escape. They escape the lab and take over a spaceship...