Blade Sliders review - An action game that's lacking in action
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iOS
| Blade Sliders

Blade Sliders is an action game that involves tapping. Which is silly if you think about it, because the title makes it sound like it's all about sliding a finger across the screen.

Actually it's the characters in the game that slide. And you make them do that by tapping. It's a simple system and for the most part it works.

The main problem here though is that while the focus is on action, you always feel a little too fragile, a little too close to imminent death. Because you are.

Blade 2

There's a spinning reticle under your character, tap the screen and they'll shoot off in the direction the reticle is pointing in, slicing anything that gets in their way.

And by anything I mean zombies, aliens, and mummies, depending on which level you're playing. There are some rocks and trees and cars as well, but you don't always slice them. You just sort of bump into them.

For every attack you perform that hits something you're supposed to hit you get one point. It doesn't matter if you kill one zombie or a million, you're only getting one point.

And while you're sliding around the ground is falling out from underneath your feet. It comes back eventually, but falling through the newly created holes will kill you.

Get hit too many times by your assailants and you'll die as well. Oh and the levels have edges, and if you slide off one of those, you die. There's a lot of dying going on here.

There are coins to collect too. Get enough of these and you'll be able to purchase a new hero. Although the prices are set pretty high, so it's a long old grind before you get a chance to try out someone new.

To be honest it's unlikely you'll get there though. There's nothing particularly wrong with the game, and its little bursts of violence are interesting, but the problem is they're only ever little bursts.

And the lack of progression eats at you every time. You want to get further in, you want to find new secrets and moves, but the glacial pace of the unlocks leaves you repeating yourself over and over.

Blade Trinity

There's a neat central idea here, but it's just not enough to carry you deeper into the experience. You always feel like you're on the periphery, looking in at what could have been.

And that's not the best feeling to have when you're playing a game. It's not the worst either. That's probably something more like your bladder exploding.

Anyway, that's not really the point. Blade Sliders is okay, but it could, and possibly should, have been much, much better.

Blade Sliders review - An action game that's lacking in action

An action game that doesn't snap in the right way, and that's a real shame
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.