Slam Land Slams its way onto PC/PS4/Nintendo Switch

By: GeekyGamerGirl87

Developed and published by Bread Machine Games, Slam Land is an exciting multi-player couch co-op game, in which you take on the role of 1 of 5 characters, and take turns slamming one another into a goal, or completing the task of the game mode you select. When I first was shown the trailer for the game, I was really pulled into how bright the colors of the game were. the art style reminded me a little bit of CatDog if it had been drawn with oil pastels and color pencils. The art style is what made me really connect to the game a little bit more and say “Alright, I am willing to give this game a go.” However, before I dive into my review of Slam Land, I would like to take the time to thank Bread Machine Games for being kind enough to provide me with a free copy of the Steam Version of the game. Due to their kindness, I was able to write this review for you all to read.

The game does not have a storyline at least not one that I could really deduce. So instead of discussing a storyline, I will talk about the main objective of the game. You or you and three of your buddies will battle it out against each other. The main objective is to grab your opponent, or objects in some game modes and sometimes even your opponents and objects; and slam them into the goal. The one who has the most points at the end of the round(s) will reign victorious.

You will have the opportunity to choose between five different characters: Human – a human, Spooder- a spider, Mold Dog – a dog, Toober – a carrot, and Skelly – a skeleton; who when I first played the game, was not available at the time. The fact that Skelly did show up leaves me to speculate that there will be more characters to choose from. If not, I do hope that later there are more characters added to the game, to keep the game fresh. You can change the look of each of your characters and the looks and styles are awesome. Skelly can become a red skeleton with horns, Mold Dog can become a dog with lollipops attached, and your Human man can be changed into a lady; just to name a few of the skins you change over to.  The game also offers five different game modes that you all will be able to choose from: The game’s modes are Slam Tour, Quick Slam, Peanut, Horse, and Trash.

In Slam Tour, you start off with you only being able to select five rounds. This is due to switching the number of rounds has been currently locked.  As you are playing five rounds you are unable to switch the stages. Currently, there is only 4 stages and then each stage has a variation of one of the four stages. I hope too that they do add more stages to the game as well, so again it gives variety to the game. You can select a time limit of a minimum of thirty seconds or a maximum of five minutes. It appears that time mode is the only mode that is currently available. I have played the game a numerous of times but have never been able to unlock the other modes. I speculate that either there are no other modes to select from yet, or there are no other modes but timed mode.  I am thinking the later because with Slam Tour you play at random; the other modes of the game. Also, you can select in the upper right corner how many CPU players you want to play against and their level of difficulty. If you are playing with other players, this option will not be available to you.

In Quick Slam, there is a minimum of one round up to a maximum of five rounds. Instead of it just being timed mode you have both a time and stock mode. Again, the minimum of time is thirty seconds with a maximum being five minutes. In Stock mode, you have a minimum of one stock to a maximum of ten stock. In time mode, you will race against the clock to slam your opponents into the goal, as many times as you possibly can. In Stock mode, you must slam any of your opponents the number of times you have selected. Once that opponent has been slammed the number of times, they will suffer a permadeath which removes them from the game. Another cool feature for this mode is that if you go so long without being slam or you do a worthy slam. You will temporary gain a sparkly skin, showing that you are currently the one to beat.

In Peanut, there is a minimum of one round up to a maximum of five rounds. There is only a timed mode for this mode as well with again; the thirty seconds being  the minimum and five minutes being the maximum. In this mode you are battling out to get a hold of a peanut. The longer you hold onto the peanut the higher your score becomes. In addition to picking up the peanut you can also grab and slam opponents who have the peanut in their grasps gaining even more points.

In Horse, there is a minimum of one round up to a maximum of five rounds. The only mode available is time mode which again you have the minimum of thirty seconds and a maximum of five minutes. In this mode, you will battle out to grab the knight pieces ( horse pieces) to spell out horse. Again, you grab the pieces and slam them into the goal. Unlike some of the other modes, grabbing your opponents to slam them into the goal does not rendering additional points. It just bounces them off the goal, giving them a super jump. The first one to spell out Horse wins, and if no one spells out horse the one with the most letters is dubbed the winner.

In the last and final mode Trash, there is a minimum of one round up to a maximum of five rounds. The only mode available is time mode which again like in the other modes; you have the minimum of thirty seconds and a maximum of five minutes. In this mode, you are taking out the trash so to speak. You will go around gathering bags of trash that you then will slam into the goal. Again, like in some of the other modes you can grab your opponents and slam them into the goal along with the trash, giving yourself more points.

When it comes to the controls you can play with both keyboard and gamepad. The way that you select from keyboard or gamepad is at the beginning screen when the game first loads up.  If you use the mouse to start up the game. Then it will automatically default to keyboard. If you use the gamepad to start the game; it will default to gamepad. You can change over to gamepad from keyboard mode, by hitting the A button on your gamepad. However, you cannot switch from gamepad to keyboard unless you go all the way back to the starting title screen. In the future, I hope that they add a more efficient way of getting back to keyboard controls if you so choose to play with keyboard. Only at the start of the game does it show you the controls for your selected method of play. Each time you exit out of the game completely and restart the game it will show you the how to play. It’s not an issue because it’s not like there’s a lot of  controls. However,  for those who have played the game numerous of times; it would be nice to be able to skip the option in the future.

I have played with both controls and I can say both controls work very well for the game. It is a little awkward at first using the J key to grab and K key to jump especially if you use the W,A,S,D, to move around. Ideally, if you are using the arrow keys you are perfectly fine. If not, it would be nice if you could use W,A,S,D, a little more efficiently making it to were you could maybe use the ctrl key to grab. You already have the option to use spacebar to jump. Just another alternative for those who are use to the W,A,S,D, keys. Although, I’ve played with both keyboard and gamepad. I will highly recommend using the gamepad for the game. Although, the controls were flawless, it’s just to me the gameplay  feels more natural with the gamepad.  The controls are simple, and I like the simplicity of the controls.

The game is well designed, and the audio is very well done. However, there is one thing I feel that the game does lack and that is the ability to play online against others. There’s nothing wrong with couch co-op, but I feel that the game would thrive and do very well if there was an online multiplayer feature. Now, with that being said; I just want to say that I am not saying that Slam Land may not add online multiplayer, because I have seen other games go back and add online multiplayer at a later date . It’s just currently, right now it is couch co-op only. This is fine if you have buddies to play with. For those of us who don’t have buddies to play with on a regular, it would be nice to offer the  feature. I will say I am hoping that they do go back and add the feature. I would love to be able to play this against other players online. Having a card that tells how many times you have won or loss, because games like these do very well with an online multiplayer mode.

Another thing I mentioned before is that there are currently only four stages and there is only five characters. I hope that they do add more stages to the game and that they will release more characters to play with. I’m not saying that it has to be a roster of twenty or so characters. I would say that if they had at least eight different characters, more stages to show off the beautiful artwork, and add an online multiplayer feature. This great game could become a phenomenal game.  Again, as the game is just releasing, I will continue to monitor the game to see what it has to offer because the game has so much potential.

For those of you who like to collect achievements; you will be glad to know that Slam Land does include achievements. Slam Land offers fifteen achievements that you can collect. Which is a pretty reasonable amount of achievements to collect, and some of them are not exactly easy to collect. If you like to collect trading cards. The game does not offer trading cards currently. Again, the game is new and if you are someone who does like to collect trading cards, I recommend taking to the forums to request them from the developers. However, I have seen other games add the trading cards feature later to the game.

Overall, I can say that I do recommend Slam Land, especially for those of you who  are into games such as brawler games like Smash Bros Brawl or Brawlhalla. It takes a different approach to these types of games, as you are not focusing on fighting your opponents, but simply just grabbing them and dunking them like a basketball. I hope that the game finds great success and that it does well for itself. If you would like to experience Slam Land for yourself, you can do so by purchasing it on August 7^th on Steam, PS4, Nintendo Switch for the price of $7.99 USD.

As always, if you are looking for actual gameplay of the game Slam Land; I have included here in the article a gameplay video of the game. As I have written a review for the game; there is no voice over for the video, except in the beginning telling you the information you need to know. I do this so that you can enjoy the gameplay in all it’s glory.