Slide Stars

Slide Stars is actually not all that bad, it’s just hard as nails. The gameplay sees you precariously balancing your rider, and depending on whether you’re piloting an oversized coin or a baby turtle, every vehicle controls slightly differently. The social media superstars each have different specialties, whether it’s gaming, fashion, or travel, and thus can inexplicably open up different paths in the stages, unlocking secrets and shortcuts along the way.

To be honest, if Slide Stars would be a more arcadey experience similar to SSX, it would’ve easily ended up on my top 10 of the year because it just screams big dumb fun. The physics-based control pretty much removes any brainless fun you could have as you constantly have to focus on the controls. Fans of Trials Fusion looking for something different might be interested, but if Ubisoft’s physics-based racer doesn’t do it for you, avoid Slide Stars.

I feel like I’ve typed more about Slide Stars than I probably should have. It’s a short-lived clunky game that is priced at a whopping 40 bucks. No way would I pay that for this game. This is an eight dollar experience at best. While it’s never broken, it is never something I found myself wanting to complete. In fact, I don’t see the proper audience for this at all. Obviously someone younger than me, but good luck getting a kid to play this one for longer than about 10 minutes.

If you're a fan of any of the social media personalities in Slide Stars then you'll have a great time sliding and flipping through its levels.

Star Slides is a short title to play alone or have some unintentional laughs with a second player. It’s silly fun that would have been easy to recommend at a cheaper price point. But since that’s not that case here, I would say save your money and slide on to something else worth your time. At least it doesn’t have microtransactions, so that’s good.

I turned 30 this year so maybe I’m just out of touch with what the youngins want. I don’t know. What I do know is that selling an ad for social media influencers under the guise of feel good, earth friendly, “seize the day” quotes and cheesy bios to young consumers in a half-baked game for $40 is an outright unethical move that undermines every ounce of Slide Stars attempted positivity.