TC Staff Writer, Author at Thumb Culture

Seasons After Fall Review – Ori For The PS4?

15May

By TC Staff WriterNo Comments

Seasons After Fall Review – Ori For The PS4?

The very first thing you will notice about Seasons After Fall, this charming little puzzle platformer developed by French company Swing Swing Submarine is its gorgeous audio-visual presentation at the start of the game. It reminded me very much of a scene in Watership Down (If you haven’t seen this movie yet, make sure you do and have a box of tissues at the ready) I was very excited to receive this to review because I just love platformers, and platformers with puzzles involved are a win win! Plus, who doesn’t enjoy playing as a cute fox? Join me as we look at the aspects of this visually delightful game. Gameplay To put it as simply as possible, it’s a beautiful 2D Puzzle Platformer, but let’s get you up to speed a little better…The title starts you in the role of a ‘seed’ or a sp...

Waddle Home PSVR Review – A New Gem Or Left Feeling Frosty?

4May

By TC Staff WriterNo Comments

PlayStation Reviews

Waddle Home PSVR Review – A New Gem Or Left Feeling Frosty?

Waddle Home is a game about rescuing cutesy little penguins, what I'm saving them from is beyond me. Although I'm leading them to a rescue ship which looks exactly like a UFO. Wait it is a UFO, surely that's abduction right? Am I leading poor, defenceless penguins to be abducted by aliens for testing? For all I know I could be sending these helpless penguins to their doom. Luckily the game leads you to believe you're doing good, so I'll just agree for now. The game is available on PSN, Steam, Oculus and Samsung Gear. This was on PSVR Starting the level off, you see a caged penguin. Aiming the beam 'emitted from the PS4 controller' towards the cage then a simple tap of the X button releases the penguin. When I think about penguins, I think of them waddling along anywhere they please,...

Induction Review – Mind Altering Puzzle Perception

3May

By TC Staff WriterNo Comments

PC Reviews

Induction Review – Mind Altering Puzzle Perception

Induction is an indie game that centres on using time travel to create time loops, in order to solve mind bending puzzles. Whilst this concept will be familiar to fans of Valves series Portal, it is used in different ways to great effect in Induction, and has caused me to ponder the solution to puzzles for days on end. You take control of a cube and can move in 4 different directions to push objects around and reach the goal area of that level which appears surprisingly easy at first. However you are swiftly introduced to the key ability of this cube, which is the power to create one clone of your cube that will then play out every action you have performed up to the point you made a clone. The aim then is to manipulate a variety of objects across multiple timelines to proceed into the ...

Crawl Review – Retro Hit? Or Creepy Miss?

25Apr

By TC Staff WriterNo Comments

PlayStation Reviews

Crawl Review – Retro Hit? Or Creepy Miss?

Crawl is a roguelike, brawler indie video game by Australian developer Powerhoof and I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to review this quirky retro gem. Crawl is (appropriately) a dungeon crawler with an 8-bit heart of gold. The art style and music are pure retro: Modelled after arcade dungeon crawlers, they manage to somehow give the hero and monsters their own personalities and a trippy, kinetic feel. If Atari’s classic Gauntlet (the 1985 original) was three-quarters view instead of top-down, it might have looked like this... Gameplay The main player advances through randomly generated dungeons as a human hero while up to three other spirit players control the dungeon's enemies and traps to kill the main player. The spirit player who kills the human hero swaps roles to ...

Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom Review – Is This A True RPG?

18Apr

By TC Staff Writer2 Comments

PlayStation Reviews

Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom Review – Is This A True RPG?

Shiness is a game you’ve probably never heard of, but if you’ve mourned the loss of Playstation 2-era adventure games over the past decade, it’s one you should look out for. Shiness is an Action-RPG ( or what I’d like to call more as a JRPG ) developed by French independent studio Enigami, promising to take you on a journey through an enthralling universe on the verge of collapse, following the fragmentation of planet Mahera. The game’s universe was born over 20 years ago from the pen strokes of Samir Rebib, Artistic Director of the studio. You play as cutey Chado and his companions, traveling through the Celestial islands on their flying ship. After crash-landing on one of the most hostile of the Celestial islands, you find yourself in the middle of a conflict across multiple kingdoms. Ho...

14Apr

By TC Staff Writer1 Comment

Xbox Reviews

Air Guitar Warrior Kinect Review – Thrash Metal or Soft Rock?

Ever thought of yourself as the next Jimi Hendrix or Slash? Always wanted a guitar that shot bullets at floating skulls? Ever wanted to ride dinosaurs, sharks with lasers, tigers and jet-powered crocodiles? Then, your dreams have come true in Air Guitar Warrior! Here you can be the Rock God/Demon Killer you have always wanted to be! Air Guitar Warrior for Kinect from the Virtual Air Guitar Company, the folks responsible for bringing the classic Boom Ball series and many other Kinect related titles to the console, and are quite clearly a super fun company! I can only imagine the amount of enjoyment they had making this game and having to call their partners of an evening saying “Oh no, I’m going to have to work late tonight honey. I’m so sorry!” just to spend that few hours more into...

The Walking Dead Review – A New Frontier Episode 3 “Above The Law”

10Apr

By TC Staff WriterNo Comments

PlayStation Reviews

The Walking Dead Review – A New Frontier Episode 3 “Above The Law”

A highly adaptable point and click adventure game plucked from the amazing mind of Robert Kirkman ( I have to say, I have his graphic novels. If you haven't read these and you're a zombie fan, do so now!) The walking dead a new frontier is available on Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, PS4 and Xbox one although it will not be released on the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360, but players that have saves from Season Two on these platforms will be able to download a patch on those consoles as to upload their saved game to Telltale's servers, and then access that from their new choice of platform. Above the Law picks up right after where the first two episodes ended, with Javi and his group standing outside the gates of Richmond at the New Frontier’s headquarters. Right from the get go, I was kic...

Horizon Zero Dawn Review – Expand your Horizon

5Apr

By TC Staff Writer3 Comments

PlayStation Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn Review – Expand your Horizon

Sit back, unwind and let me take you to a vast world that's lush with rolling fields, mountains that lay in a noble line on the spine of the land as if long ago it was a great beast, only to lie down one day and never get up and sunsets that take your breath away. Feeling relaxed yet? Don't be! As right above you is a Stormbird with wings bigger than you've ever seen, ready to tear you apart with one swoop of its tremendous claws and then just in front of you, eyeing you from the grassy verge is a Thunderjaw, ready and waiting to crush you with one swift move from the tip of its armed scythe-like finned tail! Welcome to Horizon Zero Dawn, a PS4-exclusive action role playing game developed by Guerrilla Games, creators of the Killzone franchise and who until recently were pretty much ...

Mass Effect: Andromeda Review – Brave New World?

4Apr

By TC Staff WriterNo Comments

PlayStation Reviews

Mass Effect: Andromeda Review – Brave New World?

Mass Effect Andromeda is Bioware’s latest game, touted as an epic, sci-fi action RPG, does it deliver on its promises? Or does it fall short of the lofty bar set by other games in the RPG genre? Read on to find out. Set between the events of Mass Effect 2 and 3, Andromeda casts you as a young explorer searching for a new home for the human race. This begins with a fairly robust character creator and a lengthy prologue mission which sets you up as the new pathfinder, whilst getting to grips with the games mechanics. You’re quickly introduced to your squad mates and family, but with very little back story or exposition it’s hard to care about them in any meaningful way and is one of Andromeda’s biggest flaws. Almost all of the characters you come across are dull and wooden, with odd dialo...

Darknet Review – Taking A Dip Into A Hacking World

3Apr

By TC Staff Writer1 Comment

PlayStation Reviews

Darknet Review – Taking A Dip Into A Hacking World

Darknet is a game where you're placed in the shoes of an elite hacker. Building up reputation and a whole lot of money. Everyone likes earning money right? unfortunately, the money isn't real but we can always dream. The game is all about hacking and the formula works great, the concept of hacking to me is absolutely awesome. What Darknet does right is the fact it's more complex hacking than the likes of watchdogs and Deus Ex , where they opt for simple one button hacks. It's a great balance for being fun, simple to learn but hard to master. All fit into a nice little puzzle game at a great price. Upon starting the game up i was thrown straight into the tutorial, working my way into the hacking world. It starts you off in the middle of a digital sphere. surrounded by ma...