Arcade racing games take many forms, and their variety is one of the genre’s strengths. Slipstream is an arcade bubble racer without the standard accelerate, brake, or steer mechanics. Instead, it adopts a catapult point-and-shoot control scheme that sets the game down a unique, chaotic, and at times, a fantastic path.
Each race places a set of 10 bubbles on a grid to complete laps around a track. There are three race cups, single races, and time trials across multiple laps to choose from. Using a meter, you’ll pull back your bubble using the analogue stick or mouse, and then press and hold a button to charge your air bubble full of breath. Let go and your bubble will catapult forward. As we’re bubbles, most of the tracks take place on water, and that means we are slipping and sliding our way around each course. You’ll ricochet off of soap bottles, sewer walls, lilypads, and all kinds of kitchen items as you blast around the tracks, and often using rebounding angles is the quickest way to get around a track. Just bear in mind that there will be nine others attempting to do the same thing, and you’ll bounce off of each other too.
Bubbles do not have unlimited power, and this is the next nuance to Slipstream’s gameplay. Each bubble has an oxygen meter, so a big push will sap your oxygen. It will also leave behind little oxygen bubbles wherever you’ve collided with others or blasted a large breath of air. From lap 2 onwards, this plays into your strategy, as collecting the left-behind air bubbles replenishes your oxygen meter quicker and allows you to take bigger puffs of air earlier. The downside is that these air bubbles are hardly ever on the racing line, so you’ll need to assess the risk versus the reward. Run out of oxygen, and you’ll crawl to a halt, smaller in body, and need to button mash to gasp some air back.
Sometimes the air bubble mechanic doesn’t come into the foreground of the gameplay mechanics because of the excellent track design. Whilst there are only 8 tracks, and that is a shame, each one is very well designed. One loops like a river rapid, and the sewer level changes routes, so you’ll not see the same track each lap. I really like the cooking station level as each pot of stew is a tiny mini race to a portal. The course design is imaginative and a standout for the game. Courses have shortcuts that incentivise running low on oxygen as a tactic for trying to slide through a small gap that normal-sized bubbles can’t fit through. Again, it’s thoughtful design.
Whilst the control scheme took me a while to get used to, I found an inherent lack of precision that niggled at me on the tighter tracks. That becomes exasperated when you’ve got multiple bubbles trying to get around a hairpin or a slalom of soap bottles. You all smash into each other, and it feels like Slipstream veers to the wrong side of chaos. That chaos is largely for a single player only. There are no local multiplayer modes. The online lobby can support up to 9 players, but I’ve never seen another player online. If you want to play with friends, this will be a group investment. The AI is a bit hit and miss, but the online leaderboards for time trials have longevity.
I do feel like the lack of local multiplayer hinders the wild and random purchase buy, but this is a genuinely fun and unique game if you don’t mind a bit of fuzzy physics in your arcade racer. There is a lot of thoughtful design, and the courses play into the unique mechanics well. Consider it on sale if you are not ready to pop down the cash.
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