GameCube

Tube Slider

The game revolves around a futuristic racing circuit that features tracks made out of gigantic tubes. These tracks are generally suspended in air (held by what, no one knows), and have large windows that allow you to see the detailed city below. Racing in them is like flying down a waterslide that just goes around in circles, never leading to a pool.

On the other hand, this high difficulty may help hide the fact that the game is rather sparse in content, with only seven original courses, a grand prix mode, and a few practice and multiplayer modes. Given the annoying nature of the computer AI, Tube Slider is at its best when played with others. The game supports up to four players in split-screen, and, remarkably, the graphics and framerate don't skip a beat. It may be hard getting a friend to play Tube Slider enough to get a grip on its unique handling characteristics, but if you succeed in training someone you'll have much more fun racing them than you will the too-frustrating AI.

When this game was first announced, GameCube owners found out that it would hit stores only a few short months later. So, there wasn’t really any time for some sort of hype to build up around the game. Luckily, that ended up being a good thing, since Tube Slider isn’t the best of games. Though, I have to admit that I did enjoy my experience with NdCUBE’s first GameCube game. It has a lot going for it and if you learn how to play the game really well, you’ll enjoy the game for as long as it lasts, which isn’t very long. If it wasn’t for Tube Slider’s cruel AI and sloppy controls it could have earned a more venerable score.

This is the launch title for the new software division of NEC Games and was created by NDCube, the designers behind the GBA version of F-Zero. While the name isn’t as glamorous as it could be it does accurately reflect the gameplay. Tube Slider is a futuristic racing game in which players pilot sleek hovercraft around tubular tracks that twist and turn and test not only your speed, but also your ability to keep your craft in control. Choose between Grand Prix or Free Run modes as you race one of fifteen different tweaked-out vehicles around ten unique and highly detailed elevated courses. The game features an interactive Tutorial mode, and multiplayer for up to four players (split-screen).

Like F-Zero, Tube Slider is a futuristic racer. Its vehicles are hovercraft. They have turbo boosts and side rockets. They race across unpredictable twisting tracks, too. See the similarities here? But unlike F-Zero, the courses all take place exclusively inside transparent tubes. Another difference lies in execution, at which point F-Zero really begins to separate itself. For while Tube Slider is in the end a decent racer -- neither exceptional nor sub par -- it lacks the speed, balance and depth that Nintendo's franchise has become famous for.

In all, Tube Slider feels more like an appetizer before F-Zero hits the next-generation. It has the right elements of speed and control, but it just sticks too close to the mainstays of the genre to carve out a niche. There needs to be more uniqueness to Tube Slider besides the title.

Tube Slider is a generally uninteresting futuristic racer that doesn't do anything that hasn't already been done, and done better, by previous futuristic racers.