Slide Stars

I came into Slide Stars expecting something simple and disposable - a couch game you fire up for twenty minutes and forget. What I got was something more frustrating than that, because the core loop is just close enough to working that you can feel the version of this game that could have been good. It is a 2.5D obstacle-course platformer in the spirit of Trials HD, except someone replaced the motorbike with an inflatable flamingo, the tracks with water flumes, and the rider with a rotating cast of social media influencers. The ride variety is the game's best feature - you can pilot anything from a baby turtle to a fire-breathing dragon, and each float handles with noticeably different weight and bounce. That part is fine. The part that breaks it is everything built around it. The momentum system is the theoretical spine of the game. Get speed, nail a boost before a ramp, launch through a loop, take an alternate character-gated route. Each level has multiple paths unlocked by matching your chosen influencer's content category - fitness, music, fashion - to themed gates scattered through the stage. In principle that adds replay incentive and makes character selection feel consequential. In practice, the level design undermines the whole thing by constantly grinding you to a halt. Elevator platforms that make you stand and wait. Balance beams. Seesaw sections. Platforming sequences over rows of rocks. The game cannot make up its mind whether it wants to be a speed-runner or a careful puzzler, and the controls, which are already floaty and imprecise, collapse under the weight of slow sections that demand precision the engine cannot deliver. The camera occasionally zooms in at exactly the wrong moment, hiding an obstacle until you are already dead. Ramps that look like they want a speed boost will actually slam you face-first into a ceiling. The game punishes good play. The influencer hook is the most divisive part and also the least important mechanically. The characters are unlocked with earned tokens and each comes with a themed float skin - cosmetic enough to mostly ignore. The in-level motivational quote ticker ("believe in yourself," "have a healthy diet") is exactly as charming as that sounds. Boss encounters exist on paper - there is an octopus that waves its tentacles and then sinks while you float past it. It is not a boss fight. The two-player local co-op is the strongest argument for the game's existence; the chaos of sharing a session with someone on the couch disguises the worst design sins and turns wipeouts into something you laugh at together rather than silently resent. The ragdoll physics on a wipeout, credit where it is due, are genuinely funny for a few minutes. On PC the game arrived in April 2022, well after its console debut, to near-total silence - only a handful of Steam user reviews on record. That anonymity is earned. The content is thin: a bit over twenty slides total, and the difficulty curve flips randomly rather than building. The floaty control response that the original console reviews flagged has not been meaningfully addressed. If you find it at a steep discount and have a willing second player, the local co-op mode can generate a short, chaotic session worth the time invested. Solo, the stop-start level design and imprecise controls wear out their welcome before you reach the second world. Fred, Scout Team