Halfbrick’s new mobile game takes on street skating, but don’t expect Tony Hawk craziness — this is a simple skater in which you avoid basic obstacles, try to keep speed up, and pull off a 180 or 360 where you can for extra points.
Star Skater is now out on the App Store and Google Play Store. You hold either side of the screen to turn, touching lower on the screen to brake harder, and attempt to get through levels with the fastest times and highest trick scores. It’s not an endless skater, but rather basic levels with set score benchmarks.
Given the recent revelations about how Halfbrick is running its shop, it’ll be interesting to see how its new by-the-numbers game releases fare. At the moment, Star Skater is sitting at about four stars on the Google Play Store, with plenty of five star reviews. I’ve only played the first 15 levels or so, and while I didn’t really feel any magic, it’s early days.
It actually kind of looks like a combination of other recent Aussie games. The blocky graphics combined with the gumball machine reward screen is very Crossy Road, while the gameplay and level select screen are a bit more like Skiing Yeti Mountain. The cynical prick in me is wondering if Halfbrick doesn’t need designers anymore because they’re letting other people design games for them. But to be fair, it looks like Star Skater isn’t copying the acceleration mechanic of Skiing Yeti Mountain, which is a big part of it. At the moment though, both of those earlier titles seem like better games. But like I said, early days.
Leave a Reply