Jason, Author at Thumb Culture

13Feb

By JasonNo Comments

Dynasty Warriors 9 Review – Big Trouble in Little China

Fancy playing a massive open-world hack n slash game set in China? Well you're in luck as publisher Koei Tecmo along with developer Omega Force has produced Dynasty Warriors 9, the latest instalment, and largest, of the Dynasty Warriors series. Available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Pc, I have been fortunate enough to don my best samurai outfit and wield the largest sword I can find to bring you my findings young Daniel Son. What are Dynasty Warriors I hear you ask? Well, the award-winning gaming series is a spin-off from the 1985 turn-based strategy "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" by Koei and is loosely settled around the Chinese historical text "Records of the Three Kingdoms" depicting the events of the late Eastern Han dynasty 184-220AD and the Three Kingdoms period 220-280AD. ...

Sociable Soccer Review – The Beautiful Game?

12Feb

By JasonNo Comments

PC Reviews

Sociable Soccer Review – The Beautiful Game?

For gamers of a certain age there will be fond memories of playing a simple but awesome football game called Sensible Soccer back in the 90s. For me it was THE number one game to play with my friends on our Atari ST. Fast forward to now and Jon Hare who was the designer behind my favourite game back then has reappeared on the gaming scene with Sociable Soccer. Made by Tower Studios and Combo-Breaker, Sociable Soccer is currently available on Steam Early Access for £14.99. With my misspent youth seemingly like a distant past I was more than happy to get my boots back on and take to the pitch! Was Sociable Soccer going to win a trophy or go for an early bath? Gameplay Sociable Soccer has a simple, easy to navigate menu currently displaying as "Boss mode", "Trophies", "Options" an...

Star Wars Battlefront II Review – Is The Force Still Strong?

16Jan

By JasonNo Comments

PC Reviews

Star Wars Battlefront II Review – Is The Force Still Strong?

Much anticipated Star Wars Battlefront II by EA DICE, Motive Studios and Criterion Software has blasted onto our consoles and boy has it generated some mixed responses from the gaming world, unfortunately mainly negative. I have had the erm... pleasure to play through the latest offering in the Star Wars world and have temporarily cast the negativity aside to try and give you my honest verdict, Red 5 standing by! Gameplay Star Wars Battlefront II's newest feature is the single player campaign that sees you play predominantly as a female Imperial Special Forces Officer named Iden Versio. Jumping into her storm trooper boots just as the second Death Star is destroyed in Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi, you are sent on a mission of retaliation by your father Admiral Garrick Versio called...

We Sing Pop! Review – My My, How Can I Resist You?

8Dec

By JasonNo Comments

PlayStation Reviews

We Sing Pop! Review – My My, How Can I Resist You?

We Sing Pop! by THQ Nordic and Le Cortex is the latest karaoke game in the We Sing series to come to PS4 and Xbox One and features "the hottest sounds from the world's biggest artists", so long as you are in agreement with the track listing. Available as either a stand alone game singing into your smart phone or as a bundle with 2 gold topped microphones, let the drunken sing offs commence! (I don't condone drinking however it helps when it comes to singing!). Gameplay Boasting 8 game modes, 30 original song recordings and videos that span across the last 5 decades, We Sing Pop! certainly has something for everyone here. The first hurdle that I came across was connecting the USB wired microphones. Unfortunately for me, an issue with the front usb ports of my Playstation Pro made t...

Demon Gaze II Review – Friends Become Enemies, Enemies Become Friends

6Dec

By JasonNo Comments

PlayStation Reviews

Demon Gaze II Review – Friends Become Enemies, Enemies Become Friends

Demon Gaze II by Kadokawa games and Experience is a Japanese role play game (JRPG)/dungeon crawler that is available exclusively on Playstation 4 and PS vita. Demon Gaze II is unsurprisingly the second instalment of the series that has been produced due to popular demand as a follow on to the original Demon Gaze that came out 4 years ago. So what's it all about? Lets find out! Gameplay Diving straight in, character creation is the first port of call. Choosing a portrait from between a dozen anime looking people then leads to selecting your temper, skill, name and voice. Temper is a choice between good, neutral and evil, something that ultimately is connected to the skills that you can then choose between. I went for a neutral temper and then had the choice of either a defensive ...

16Nov

By JasonNo Comments

PC Reviews

Real Farm Review – Hoedown or Plough Up

Real Farm by development studio Triangle Studios (Aerea, The Bug Catcher, Uphill Rush) and published by Soedesco (Tricky Towers, The Girl and the Robot), is the latest foray into the agricultural sim marketplace of, you've guessed it, farming! With the farming sim world pretty much dominated by Giants Software's Farming Simulator franchise, is there enough of a want for another simulator of this type? Gameplay Real Farm is set in America although in-game currency can be selected as either dollars or euros. Having watched the trailer countless times prior to being given the chance to review the game, I couldn't wait to explore the countryside in stunning 4k all the while bobbing about on my tractor. From sowing crops, tending to livestock and then buying and selling using the re...

13Nov

By JasonNo Comments

PC Reviews

Megaton Rainfall Review – I Believe I Can Fly?

Megaton Rainfall is a first person superhero game by Pentadimensional Games who are an indie studio based in Madrid, Spain. Designed and programmed by Alfonso del Cerro over the last 5 years, Megaton Rainfall boasts an "unprecedented freedom of movement" and "unprecedented scale of destruction" as you get to battle an alien invasion across planet earth. Initially released exclusively for PS4/PSVR and due out via Steam late November, just how is a game of this size going to play out? Gameplay Ok, so imagine films such as Independence Day and Mars Attacks with famous landmarks being blown up and debris flying everywhere. Well in a nutshell you are here to prevent the destruction of the cities (or add to it in my case) while battling the aliens. Learning early on via the tutorial th...

17Oct

By JasonNo Comments

PC Reviews

NHL 18 Review – Newbies Start Here

We are at that part of the year once more when EA Sports release the latest versions of their sports series. With Fifa 18, NBA Live and Madden NFL out on the market. I was pleased to have the opportunity to play EA's NHL 18 to see how it had been improved from last years offering, and also to let me do my bit to raise awareness for a sport that over in the UK isn't really well followed. In the sporting charts you wouldn't be surprised to learn that Fifa 17 on the PS4 sold 1,250,586 (VGChartz) within the first few months of its release in 2016 making it most likely to adorn the shelves of gamers up and down the country. Lets face it, football is massive over here. Ice hockey on the other hand is not so popular, and in contrast the UK sales for NHL 17 were a mere 3745 (VGChartz) copies...

3Oct

By JasonNo Comments

PlayStation Reviews

Plague Road Review – Fear The Reaper?

Plague Road, by game development studio Arcade Distillery, is the result of what happens when a kickstarter campaign successfully reaches out for backers, well 1119 backers to be accurate. Requiring a $30,000 goal, the support shown for the project almost doubled the target with $55,734 raised. So what is Plague Road all about I here you cry? With a name like that it sure isn't going to be about fluffy bunnies and happy times. Plague Road is a combination of a sideways adventure scroller with turn based tactical battles that sees you playing a lone doctor who is travelling through a land that has been ravished by a plague. The quest? to search for survivors following the outbreak across a series of regions having left the relative safety of your farm. As the story unfolds you learn ...

Mantis Burn Racing – Review – New BattleCars DLC!

25Sep

By JasonNo Comments

PC Reviews

Mantis Burn Racing – Review – New BattleCars DLC!

I've played a fair few racing games in my lifetime and thankfully have seen the evolution from the days of Super Sprint and Outrun to the latest offerings like F1 2018 and Project Cars. Car games are fun be they realistic or arcade-style. For me, there's nothing better than being rewarded by a win for your efforts to race a car around a course. Indie Developer Voofoo games' Mantis Burn Racing has graced the Xbox One, PS4 and Steam store since the middle of 2016 and was announced at the recent EGX in Birmingham, UK that a Nintendo Switch version is in the pipeline. In a moment I will talk about the new BattleCars DLC, however its worth quickly mentioning a little about Mantis Burn Racing incase you've never played it before! Gameplay So as I previously mentioned the game is a to...