Fling to the Finish

My Saturday night co-op group spent an embarrassing amount of time on this one, and honestly the concept alone sold us before we even loaded a level. You and a partner are physically tethered by a stretchy elastic rope, both controlling round, bouncy little characters as you barrel through chaotic obstacle courses trying to reach the finish line first. The rope is the whole game. Early on it snags on every cactus, pinball bumper, and mine cart it passes. Get good at communicating, though, and that same rope becomes a slingshot: one player sticks to a surface while the other builds momentum, then you fling each other up ledges or over hazards in ways that feel genuinely clever when they click. The core moveset is small and accessible: move, jump, stick to surfaces, and fling your partner. That is it. Anyone can grasp the basics in under two minutes, which makes it genuinely great for mixed-skill groups. Levels span playgrounds, giant casinos, asteroid fields, and deserts littered with aliens and Area 51 fencing, each themed environment bringing its own flavour of hazards. The campaign runs four worlds with four maps each, and every map unlocks multiple sub-modes including a Duck Hunt collectathon, a UFO race, a Coin Frenzy, and bomb-carrier challenges where you need to reach the finish before the thing in your hands detonates. The medal system, which the game calls ducks rather than stars, gates access to later content and gives completionists something to chase. Expect a couple of hours through the campaign in a single sitting, but the replay loop for duck-hunting and time trials stretches that out meaningfully. For the group-night question: yes, this absolutely holds up for a roomful of people. The competitive race mode pits up to four teams of two against each other simultaneously, and online races can involve up to eight teams total. Local split-screen works, and the shared-controller mode, where two players split one gamepad between them, is genuinely funny chaos for anyone brave enough. Crossplay between PC and console means you can pull friends in regardless of platform. Online matchmaking has historically been thin outside of the Discord community, so if you are planning random-queue sessions rather than private rooms with friends, temper your expectations a little. Private lobbies with known players are where the magic lives. A few caveats worth knowing. Solo play exists and it is technically functional, controlling both balls at once across two sticks, but it trades the joyful shared chaos for a solo juggling act that loses most of the appeal. Some players have flagged that certain vibrant levels can be hard on photosensitive folks, and there is no granular option to dial back the visual intensity without lowering overall quality. Camera angles can occasionally obscure one of your characters if you end up on the underside of a bridge or tucked in a corner, which is more frustrating than game-breaking. Repetition can set in over longer sessions since the bouncing loop does not evolve dramatically between worlds. None of this is a dealbreaker for the audience this was built for. If you have a regular co-op partner or a couch full of people who liked the idea of Chained Together but want something brighter and more immediately accessible, this delivers. It is physics-party-game chaos with a low floor, a respectable ceiling for players hunting gold ducks, and a controller-sharing mode that will absolutely end friendships in the best possible way.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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