Kieran, Author at Thumb Culture

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Retrospective

12Nov

By KieranNo Comments

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Retrospective

After the release of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune in 2007, developer Naughty Dog greenlit a sequel to be released for the holiday season of 2009. With the foundations of the new franchise outlined by the first game, Naughty Dog now had to build on those foundations to deliver a sequel perfecting their vision of a playable summer blockbuster. This adventure takes Nathan Drake away from the lush green jungles of the Amazon, on a larger adventure over the Frozen Himalayas. With new characters, a much longer story and new bombastic playable action set pieces. A Vision Realised Set two years after the Uncharted: Drake Fortune, Among Thieves throws Nathan Drake on a new adventure in search of the Chintamani stone. This game continues a similar tone to the original, a fun swashbuckling adv...

Game Night Anyone? Jackbox Party Pack 11 – PC Review

13Oct

By KieranNo Comments

PC Reviews

Game Night Anyone? Jackbox Party Pack 11 – PC Review

Game night is back. Jackbox Party Pack 11 has hit the virtual shelves! Available now on PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. Get Back In The Box For many years now, Jackbox has saved our boring evenings with hilarious party games between friends and family. With five new game modes to play, players can compete in trivia and laughs. Some of us here at Thumb Culture came together to give the new Jackbox Party Pack 11 a try. Doominate - twist your friend's words. The first game mode is Doominate. Think of this as a typical mini game in that you take something wholesome your friends have written, and completely ruin it. With love of course. The aim is to twist them into something funnier… or cruder. The winner is the one who can come up with the funniest twisted answers. As ...

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune – Retrospective

7Oct

By KieranNo Comments

Features

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune – Retrospective

Straightforward narrative driven adventure games come very few and far between these days. We live in a time when most AA or AAA games on the market try to be wallet pinching live services, or bloated open worlds that require as much commitment as your full-time job. If Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune were to release today, it would easily be seen as an outsider among the crowd. With that in mind, it’s funny to think that not so long ago, Uncharted was the golden example that many AAA game studios tried to follow. That is what I want to explore with this retrospective: how developer Naughty Dog, with their first PlayStation 3 title, laid the foundation for Uncharted to become PlayStation’s poster child for nearly a decade. Not only that, but how they also changed how the industry approach...