Tube Slider has good qualities and bad qualities. Its a tough game that will push your skills to the test.
GAME:
The object of the game is simple, come in first place or have the most points at the end of the cup to obtain the gold medal. Each gold medal unlocks a harder cup with more tracks you must race on. Powerups can also be found along the race tracks. Green powerups give you a small boost, blue gives you energy for your sub vernier, and red gives you a stronger boost. There are two difficulties, Normal and Maximum. To unlock Maximum difficulty you must win in the gold medals on the three cups on Normal. This sounds easy at first but as you progress through the normal difficulty you will notice an increase in speed with the enemy AI. On occasion, they may pull the "rubber band" move and lunge out in front of you at a very fast speed. They also begin to bump into your vehicle more often on purpose to make you spin out of control. On Normal, it is a slight increase in challenge, but on Maximum the AI pushes your skills to the test. They often get off with a head start and keeping up with the first place vehicle can be challenging. This AI intensity is one drawback of Tube Slider but with practice you might be able to defeat the enemies.
CONTROLS:
The controls to Tube Slider are simple, A button is acceleration, B or Y is your Booster or Turbo, L and R allow you along with conjunction with the control stick to pull off powerslides and drift turns.
Another interesting note is before each race you can choose which sub vernier you want to use in the race. The sub vernier is the type of speed up you want. There are two sub verniers, Booster and Turbo. There is also a tutorial mode to help better understand the controls.
BOOSTER:
As you race your ships energy gauge builds up. When it reaches maximum capacity the energy will be converted into one booster unit. You can also get behind enemy ships and drain their energy for you to use in your own ship. But they can do the same thing to you, in order to prevent your energy from being stolen, when you see a white circle appear on the back of your ship, boost and you'll actually take some of their energy they gained from you. Each ship has a specific energy gauge and the number of booster units it can hold. Keep this in mind when using this type of sub vernier.
TURBO:
Turbo is similar to Booster except instead of the energy being converted into a unit, it fills up the gauge with energy. There will be a line on the energy gauge telling you when you can use the turbo. When the energy passes the line you can use the energy collected to give you a quick or long boost depending on how much energy you stored in the gauge. You also can control how long you wish to boost and when to stop boosting unlike the Booster sub vernier. Again, each ship has a different size energy gauge so take that into consideration.
SHIPS:
When you first play Tube Slider, only eight ships will be unlocked. There are nine extra ships that can be obtained. The last one can only be obtained when you have collected the other eight unlockable ships. Each ship has their own unique stats so no ship handles the same. Taking time to master each ship will be the only way to unlock its stronger version.
OVERALL:
The good points to Tube Slider are the detailed ships (having movable parts and unique bodies), being able to choose whichever song you want to listen to on each track, being able to choose which race track you want to race on in each cup (there are certain parts in each cup that it selects the course for you), a two player circuit mode, four player multiplayer, and decent music.
The bad points to Tube Slider is the environmental graphics aren't as detailed as the ships, AI can be difficult to race against, and certain tracks are difficult to race on.
If you like sci-fi racing games, give this one a try, just be warned that the AI will frustrate you from time to time so sometimes skill and luck may go together.