THRASHER

My first instinct when I loaded THRASHER was that someone had crossed a fever dream with a leaderboard, and I mean that as a genuine compliment. This is a pure arcade score-attack built around one elegant loop: guide a space eel across a 2D plane through 3D alien worlds, smash the white shapes, encircle enemies to chain combos, and whatever you do, do not eat the red things. The circle-based combo system is the heart of it. Encircling hostile shapes rather than just flying through them banks precious bonus seconds back onto your timer, and once that clicks - and it will click - the whole thing transforms from chaotic button-waggling into something almost meditative. The two-person studio Puddle, the same team behind the cult rhythm game Thumper, built this originally for VR headsets before bringing it to flat screens in November 2025. That VR-first DNA is visible everywhere: the spatial audio haptics, the way the eel undulates as it follows your cursor or left stick, the sense that shapes are flying at you from actual depth. On PC with a gamepad the controls feel responsive and tight; precision mouse play is also supported, which is a genuine option rather than an afterthought. Steam Deck gets a quoted 90fps target with trackpad controls baked in, which is a good sign for handheld sessions. The nine worlds across 27 stages each introduce fresh wrinkles - line clusters you have to clear in one sweep before they regenerate, a super-dash diamond that lets you bulldoze through anything, a silver wrecking-ball you can volley into enemy clusters. Just when a mechanic settles into comfort, the game moves on. Each world ends with a leviathan boss fight where the standard wave rules apply but you also have to slam a spiked ball into the creature within a short window to do real damage. Miss the window and the wave loops. It is satisfying in a way that makes you immediately want to replay the exchange cleaner. The difficulty curve is accessible without being toothless. A generous checkpoint system lets you retry individual failed waves rather than restarting an entire world, which keeps casual players moving forward. Fail a wave twice and you get unlimited time on the third attempt - so no one gets genuinely stuck. The ceiling, however, is mercilessly high. S and S+ ranks require near-perfect runs with minimal time penalties, and a Time Trial mode strips away combos entirely for players who want pure movement efficiency on the leaderboards. A Play+ mode layers in additional challenge for the obsessive crowd. Most first playthroughs land around four hours in standard mode; that is a short campaign by any measure, and some reviewers have flagged that the content variety, while never dull, is not especially wide. There is no story to speak of beyond abstract cosmic vibes, and some light backgrounds in later worlds (a snowy realm was the main offender) can make it genuinely hard to read the target shapes at a glance. As a solo experience, THRASHER does not check the multiplayer box - there is no split-screen, no co-op, no versus mode. The social hook is leaderboard competition, which works best if you have friends on Steam to race against. For couch co-op night, this is a pass-the-controller experience at best. That said, it is a genuinely great spectator game; the visuals are wild enough that anyone in the room will be watching. Headphones are strongly recommended - the Lightning Bolt bassist behind Thumper's score has done something similarly visceral here, and the spatial audio mix rewards a good set of cans in ways that TV speakers simply will not deliver. At a budget price point with a free demo available, the barrier to finding out whether it clicks for you is very low.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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