I want you all to know that this action platformer and titan battler is extremely good. The parkour puzzles are clever and varied, the chainsaw weapon is empowering to wield, and the platforming and combat challenges escalate smoothly to exciting peaks. The desolate atmosphere of this unique setting—this brutalist megastructure slowly flooding with sand and inhabited by mechanized monsters—is captivating.
I was an early cheerleader for MotorSlice. I first got a glimpse in 2024 during a Guerilla Collective showcase, and even with the dense lineup of games on display, I took immediate note. Just the basic idea of fighting animated construction equipment with a chainsaw had an appealing novelty, but more than anything, the game had a tenacious and high-energy style, and it was undeniable.
Dear reader, I am a sucker for style. The way the bright midday sunshine contrasts with the long shadows amidst the towering architecture gives every location a cinematic quality. The environments are semi-realistic in appearance, at least in form and color, but the player character has some more embellished proportions. Particle effects and the speckled textures of surfaces are composed of chunky pixels, adding a welcome retro touch.
The protagonist (Slicer P—we learn that “P” is her alphabetical rank, with Z being the highest rank) climbs a gargantuan cement complex on a mission to eradicate every corrupted machine in the region. The vast network of decaying walls, towers, bridges, pillars, rooftops, and staircases has no discernible intentionality as a whole and is a simulacrum of an unfinished development project left behind to crumble. The unfathomable scale of the place comes more into focus as each level of the complex is ascended. It is imposing. It is oppressive. It is solitary. The only signs of life are the active hazards lining your path and the motorized assailants that roam the rooms and recesses.
Progression is made up of a linear series of parkour and combat challenges with checkpoints between each segment. Most areas are laid out as such that you must jump, wall run, swing, climb, and motorslice—which is to say, stick your chainsaw into the wall and propel yourself—from point A to point B. It’s a pleasure to move around. The challenges iterate creatively. Each chapter introduces a new mechanic to the flow and integrates it with steadily increasing difficulty. Later chapters favor longer gauntlets in place of more frequent checkpoints, but at no point does the difficulty spike unnaturally.
There are also strawberries. Wait, did I say strawberries? Drones—I meant drones. If you opt to explore thoroughly, in every section you can discover and retrieve rogue floating orbs via optional platforming challenges. Some of the challenges are timed, and many of the drones are quite difficult to obtain. I didn’t notice any story or gameplay effects for collecting these, so I had no reason to go after them, except… except they taunted me. Mocked me. I could not always resist them, and getting them always felt like triumph.
I do have one criticism regarding the movement though, and it is this: after a handful of sections the player is introduced to the ability to change directions while motorslicing across a wall, but this maneuver does not always work as it should. The technique itself is satisfying to get right—to change directions, you must release the motorslice button, hold your new direction during freefall, and then hold down the motorslice button again to restart the grind. It isn’t, in my opinion, very well explained, but it feels great to execute once you figure it out.
The real trouble is in Chapter 7, where this technique is heavily used: the angle of the camera affects the directional input of the motorslice, and I have only one right thumb. I cannot adjust the camera (which adjusts itself automatically during these sections) while holding the motorslice button, so I have only a fraction of a second during freefall to reorient it, which the default camera sensitivity doesn’t really allow for. The result is a lot of tedious death. All that is to say, I think that when I press UP, Slicer P should go UP. And when I am holding UP and RIGHT, Slicer P should certainly not go LEFT. As infuriating as this specific issue was, it’s worth saying that my overall appreciation for the movement, after taking some deep breaths, was barely diminished.
The platforming is interspersed with combat challenges, keeping the pacing varied, and the moveset for fighting is simple but more comprehensive than I expected. Slicer P has a basic two-hit combo as her attack, but she can also parry, dodge, and reflect projectiles with the right timing. The fighting is accompanied by a fast-paced but simple and mellow soundtrack that is easy to listen to.
There are only three types of machines to fight outside of bosses, but what the game lacks in enemy diversity it makes up for in encounter design. The combat excels in how the enemies are grouped and deployed in the space. Finding the right attacker to prioritize and disable while retreating from its compatriots requires strategy and trial and error. Much like the platforming, this dimension grows and iterates approachably in difficulty.
Each level of the megastructure culminates in a boss battle with a colossus. Wait, did I say “colossus”? Elder machine—I meant elder machine. The bosses are enormous, heavy-duty mechanized set pieces, climbable and aggressive, always repositioning to smash, slice, and batter you. These bosses are a platforming puzzle in their own right: one must figure out how to get to the weak spots, how to use the environment, and how to avoid getting crushed.
Some cycles were tedious, with long waits between windows for approaching a boss. I struggled in particular with the fourth boss, and I’m still not convinced that I beat it the “right” way. I suspect some of my trouble, in other cases if not in this one, was that it did not ever occur to me to try parrying a boss. A word to the wise out there: There are opportunities to parry bosses.
After each boss battle, there is a long, long bridge leading to a new checkpoint and cutscene. The cutscenes are not wordless, and the main character is worth talking a little about. During cutscenes, you embody Slicer P’s floating mechanical orb companion Orbie, a character that serves as the camera during gameplay (a la Lakitu from Mario 64). The relationship between the two characters is, well, strange.
Whenever a dialogue choice is presented, you have the option to choose a relatively normal response or a, uh, horny response, neither of which can actually be understood by Slicer P (I don’t think?) since Orbie’s voice becomes damaged during the beginning sequence of the game. At various points during conversations, Slicer P blushes and flirts with Orbie. Many shots in the cutscenes frame parts of Slicer P’s body suggestively and overtly, in a way that invites you to objectify her. I wasn’t into this. I could have done without it. When I play a game, I prefer to inhabit the role of the protagonist rather than to ogle them.
As the game goes on, the player begins to learn details about Slicer P’s backstory and circumstances, which offer a little depth and even make her a bit of a tragic figure, and I would have loved if more time in the cutscenes had been devoted to enriching that instead. As meager as it is, I still found something in the character to connect with.
I was reminded of a lot of amazing games while I was playing: Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia, Mirror’s Edge, NieR Automata, Pseudoregalia, and Celeste. MotorSlice is like all and none of these, combining established gameplay elements spectacularly with its own bleak aesthetic.
