Recent reviews by Ulysses "the chad" Grant

I usually play this game offline in a private lobby. I have found this to be the only reliable way to have fun in the game.

Recently I wanted to get better at the game so I could dunk on my friends. I started using the practice tool and jumped into some online lobbies to sharpen my skills. However, I have found the online experience to be fairly subpar. The most egregious issue is the server latency. Either you play in a niche region with ~20 people or you broaden the server region and suffer high ping. In a game where precision matters, high ping is simply not tolerable.

Even if you can somehow tolerate the online lag, the player base will quickly turn on you. Sure I have met a few friendly people, but for every friendly person I meet, there is an equally toxic person ready to put you down for trying to learn the game. I am not just talking about friendly trash talk either, but some pretty disappointing stuff (mostly from teammates ironically) that basically left me no choice but to not play online. I have had so many teamates AFK, quit the games, or even just purposefully push me away from the puck because they don't think I am playing well enough. I know I am not good at the game, but I am not THAT bad.

The practice tool is decent but leaves some features to be desired. For instance, I have tried practicing against bots on hard mode, but frankly they are too easy (side note: I noticed there is a bug in bots mode where attempted shots are not tallied properly). Bots don't prep you well for the juking and puck control techniques that real players have. I would love to learn those advanced techniques but with ~20 players average in my region, who are often much better at the game, there just isn't a great place to learn them.

All and all I really WANT to like this game. It is quirky, and cute, but the online experience is too toxic and laggy considering how steep the learning curve is. I know the developers are very passionate about the game, and there are some bright spots in the community, but don't let this distract you from that fact this game needs work beyond just early access fixes.

The game is free so perhaps you will consider playing it with your friends offline. However, if you are considering this for a new online multiplayer game, I would advise against it.