Every Friday, several A.V. Club staffers kick off our weekly open thread for the discussion of gaming plans and recent gaming glories, but of course, the real action is down in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What Are You Playing This Weekend?
Thumper
One of my favorite games of last year has made it to the Nintendo Switch, and I’m tearing through it once again. I’m talking about Thumper, the tremendously intense and stressful sensory assault created by Marc Flury and Brian Gibson (yes, of the amazing noise rock band Lightning Bolt). Calling it a “rhythm game” instantly draws parallels to the likes of Guitar Hero or PaRappa The Rapper or even Amplitude. There’s the understanding that you’re playing along with the music, acting it out as it proceeds with or without you. Thumper is so fascinating because it’s essentially an anti-rhythm game. The music, all pounding percussion and skittering keys, is the enemy. The music wants you dead. It manifests itself as giant, spiny skulls and liquid-metal centipedes that barf obstacles at you with every synth stab and hand clap. And you, a noble chrome space beetle, have to literally fight back against it by responding to its rhythms and harnessing the music’s own power against it.
The whole game is a spin on that call-and-response concept, with the soundtrack laying down the challenge for you to mimic. But it all happens so quickly and within a vast sonic gestalt that it’s not quite as easy as it sounds. Making matters even worse is the music’s astronomical complexity, when compared to your usual pop-based rhythm game fare. It veers into odd time signatures and makes you tap along almost exclusively in jerky syncopation. For people who aren’t quite so musically inclined, I have to imagine it’s difficult to even recognize and internalize the game’s patterns.
Thumper on Switch has all the brilliant frustration and fury of its PC and PlayStation 4 counterpart. It looks absolutely stunning on the Switch’s built-in screen, and if, like me, you don’t have a VR headset to play on, getting its breakneck action right up in your face is an especially intense way to play. (Just be sure to go into the menu and crank the volume, because the default setting is not nearly loud enough.) The big addition this version sports is support for the Switch’s “HD Rumble,” bringing an actual physicality to the violence on display and turning your hands into another point of sensation for the game to devastate. It’s not the kind of thing you’re likely to notice when the game is frying every nerve in your body, but the new dimension is a novel, fitting add-on that the developers implemented in some subtle ways. If you’ve yet to play it, and you’re up for something that will leave you shaking, sweating, and swearing, now’s a good time to answer Thumper’s call.