10 Essential Nintendo Switch Games Every New Owner Must Play

Jul 8, 2017 July 8th, 2017

1. Thumper

Thumper is genuinely one of the most intoxicating and brain-commanding experiences you can ever have. I say 'experiences' rather than just a game, because once you get the hand of its simplistic controls and start landing combos, the assault of futuristic visuals, controller vibrations and relentlessly tribal, pounding drums can completely take you over.

In reality all you're doing is matching one button press (be it taps or holds) with a variety of analogue stick movements, but its this simplicity that creates a symbiosis with the visuals onscreen.

No longer do you see the controllable scarab landing in time to the music. No longer is this some high-octane, Rez-connoting tunnel-vision of colour and response times. Once Thumper has you - and it will get you - there is nothing but the next portion of track, the next violent sequence of chicanes and jumps, the next hit.

Thumper even ends its levels with boss battles - gargantuan, twisting, squid-alien demons whose vulnerabilities need to be exposed with certain chains of moves, before landing a killing blow at the crux of a combo.

Intense and engaging don't come close - Thumper is the perfect fusion of gameplay and music; something that fits right at home on a TV's sub woofer, or with a great pair of world-cancelling headphones on the go.