Thumper Releasing Tonight, Three Days Early
Beat-em-up
Well here's a nice thing for a Monday - rhythm-rollercoaster-combat-thingummy* Thumper [official site] is being released a few days earlier than billed. Tonight, in fact! 3pm PST, which works out at 11pm in the UK and... 6pm on the East Coast.
I've had a preview copy on hand for the past few days and precious little time to get far into it, but it's this wonderful synthesis of operatic metal videos, forward momentum and rhythmic button pressing that makes me feel like a maestro when I get it right, and compels me to spend the next hour dismantling the section into a series of do-able button presses and pounding beats if I don't.
There's also a rather charming chrome beetle who represents you as the player, and I really like how some of the actions you can perform make it do a beetly kind of lunge.
I believe Alec is working on a Wot I Think for our vaguely official stance, but in the interim, those are my preliminary thoughts. Oh. Also, I've noticed that my whole body tenses when there's an action beat so I'm wondering whether this game is actively improving my core strength stats just through regular clenching!
So yeah: 3pm PST/6pm Eastern/11pm UK and it'll set you back $19.99.
*I'm thinking of referring to it as a beat-em-up for the pun but I'm not sure if most people would just think I'd referred to the wrong game...