MOTORSLICE Review for PlayStation 5

I wish I loved Motorslice. That isn’t to say Regular Studios parkour-heavy action platformer is a bad experience, far from it. It is, objectively (well, as objective as I can be), an incredibly polished title with a unique artstyle. Subjectively, I would say that ninety percent of this game was crafted in a lab for me. The aesthetic, gameplay, and challenge are all top notch and are enough to make it a new classic in the platforming genre. Make no mistake: I really want to love Motorslice, but that pesky ten percent won’t let me.

Motorslice sees players take control of P, slicer armed with a chainsaw sword, and her drone companion “Orbie” as they navigate a vast megastructure and fight the hordes of killer machines within. For those looking for more story, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Motorslice doesn’t have a particularly complex or interesting narrative, and that’s intentional on the part of the developers (it was advertised as a slice-of-life narrative). It’s more a set-up for the gameplay and environment than anything else. Though Motorslice implies a deeper world through some (key word there) of its dialogue scenes, the game is a largely vibes-based experience. Thankfully, the vibes are immaculate.

Motorslice’s aesthetic is a mix between the dream-like vibe of Playstation 2 nostalgia and overwhelming brutalist architecture. The megastructure P explores is just as much of a character as she is. The Megastructure is massive to the point of being inhospitable and downright hostile to human life. Levels literally build off of each other, and the player can see the height of the megastructure the higher they climb it. One of my favorite things to do after completing a boss fight was to look down and count how many things I recognized. Without fail, I would find the remains of at least one boss, and that behemoth of a machine would look like an ant because of how high up you ascend. Another thing that helps sell the scale is the lack of bottomless pits. Every level of Motorslice connects with another to make a real game world. There isn’t any room for artificial bottomless pits. This adds to the immersion and also means that, when you fall to your death, you will see P fall the entire distance before splattering on the pavement, and she will fall for a while the farther up the structure you climb. It’s a good (if morbid) way to show scale.

Beyond that, the color palette of Motorslice is drab in all the right ways. Befitting of a brutalist hellscape overrun by sentient construction equipment, Motorslice is a sea of concrete grey interspersed with spots of bright orange to guide the player in a natural way. The constant grey sells the absence of life beautifully, and it contrasts really well against P’s bright blue hair. She is the one piece of natural color in the entire Megastructure, and it denotes her as an intruder. It’s really good visual storytelling, and it helps sell how out of place she is in the game world.

Being an intruder, P is naturally going to encounter a fair bit of resistance in her quest to kill every piece of construction equipment she sets her eyes on. Though, “resistance” might be underselling it a bit. Motorslice is a punishing experience. P is equipped with the standard platforming kit you might be used to from the genre (wall-running, wall-jumping, sliding, the works), and each move smoothly connects during the game’s many parkour segments. P can also use her chainsaw sword to “motorslice” (get it?) pieces of the environment to move across walls and reach new areas. You will be forced to combine each move in your arsenal to survive against traps the Megastructure will throw at you (such as mines, buzzsaws, and meat grinders) and avoid falling to your death. Obstacles come at you quickly, which means you’ll need to be able to react quickly and adjust your plans accordingly. I’ll tell you right now: you will fail and watch P explode into a cloud of red mist several times, but quick respawn times do help you to not feel too demoralized about it.

Combat is similarly punishing, but much more simple. There are three basic enemy types: excavators that bum rush you, flying enemies that shoot buzz saws at you, and steam rollers that try to flatten you. You will die in one hit from each enemy, but they’re all dealt with in very simple ways. They’re never the real danger of any given area which makes basic combat a bit underwhelming. Boss fights pick up the slack. Motorslice takes a lot of cues from titles like Shadow of the Colossus and Solar Ash in regards to its bosses by making them gargantuan threats that are equal parts fights and platforming challenges. They combine Motorslice’s intense platforming with its fast-paced combat, and they’re where the gameplay reaches its peak.

There’s a lot to love about Motorslice, so what keeps me from loving it? Well, there’s one part of the game that I should think is interesting, but the implementation of it gives me pause. Motorslice does something interesting with its camera by making it a diegetic part of the world. P has a drone companion she cheekily dubs “Orbie,” and Orbie functions as both the game’s camera and the player stand-in (the drone is even credited with your gamer tag in the game’s credits). On the one hand, Motorslice uses this to further enhance its immersion. Sand can dust up the screen, and the player can manually “blink” to clear the screen. P will sometimes react to the player’s presence, giving them a wave or blushing if you stare too close at her face. This should, theoretically, give the player an opportunity to connect to P and the game world as another character in it rather than using the player character as a stand-in for themself.

Unfortunately, Orbie’s role in the game is to mostly ogle at the player character. Let me be clear: I’m not against fan service or think it’s an evil that doesn’t belong in video games. I like hot video game characters as much as the next person, but Motorslice’s handling of its fan service feels more skeevy than most. The game has several short cutscenes where Orbie can interact with P, and these follow a very similar formula of several close-up shots of the environment and P followed by a binary choice between a cold, robotic dialogue option and an incredibly horny dialogue option. There’s butt shots, a close-up shot of P’s bare feet (accompanied by an option where Orbie attempts to smell it), a close-up shot of P’s chest, options to ask her to sit on you, and a whole cavalcade of fan-service shenanigans that wouldn’t feel out of place in a really trashy ecchi anime. Once again, I’m not against fan service (hell, I usually love horny shit), but it gets to a point that feels more distracting than sexy. Orbie’s dual nature as both camera and player stand-in also makes these moments feel more voyeuristic than other fan-servicey titles. There, you’re playing as the character in question. In Motorslice, you’re playing as an entity in this world that is actively peeping on this girl. It’s a degree of separation that makes the horny shenanigans feel a tad bit creepier than usual, at least to me.

Granted, I know I’ll be in the minority when it comes to this. Despite my misgivings regarding the fan service, I still think Motorslice is going to end up being one of 2026’s stand-out indie titles. Its polished platforming and unforgettable game world will ensure that Motorslice will make its mark as a new classic in the genre. I recommend it to anyone interested in a punishing platforming adventure.

8.5/10

For more information, visit HERE

Related: Reviews by Josh Freeman

Josh Freeman

+ posts

I love games and love talking about games. Some of my favorites include action games (both 2D and 3D), metroidvanias, roguelikes, shooters, and Indies.

Tags: MOTORSLICE Top Hat Studios