And after spending some time with it, I have to say that Foamstars can be pretty fun, but that ultimately might not matter. Foamstars has the deathly aura of the kind of live-service game where it’s near crystal-clear the servers will be dead in barely a month.
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What’s In A Tutorial?
The first issue came right in the opening moments. For whatever reason, Foamstars opens with a slow and annoying tutorial that overexplains which buttons on the DualSense controller do specific abilities. The even stranger thing about this tutorial is that itonlyexplains those buttons, not a peep about how any of the game modes actually work. You’ll have to read the explanation text when entering a game to do that, which isn’t great, as it can be easily misread.
Oh, and the buttons you learned are only helpful for playing as Soa (the pink-haired face on the cover). If you want to understand any of the other six starting characters, you’ll have to play the wildly generic single-player missions. There are currently eight playable characters, counting the Bartender you unlock at level three, and Mel T from the season pass, though neither of them are available for single-player missions. You’ll only learn how to use their moves from trial-and-error, which feels like a bit of an oversight.
Squeaky Clean Cash
We have an article from Kyle Knight that already coversthe insane microtransactions, which is great, as I don’t want to risk eating up my word count by raging at this disrespectful use of the practice. The short of it is that there are bundles of just cosmetics for individual characters which cost $45 apiece.
Foamstars can only be played as a “free monthly game” through PlayStation Plus. Once that month is over, the game will cost $30, which is less than any one of those bundles for it. I didn’t see anyone playing with those cosmetics, which is a bad early sign for the life of a service game.
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Deep As Dish Water
The main game is a team vs. team third-person shooter. You pick whichever character strikes your fancy, and head out as part of a team of four. The main mode, Smash The Star, sees each team with seven lives, but with a twist that once the 7th life is gone, the best players from that team are selected as “The Star Player.” The objective for the other team is now to knock out the Star Player. No other kills count, killing the Star Player just once will end the game.
I’ve been the Star Player, and I’ve smashed the Star Player. Both are a fun experience, kinetic but with enough time to think about what you’re doing.
However, I have little experience with the other modes, and this is due to how Foamstars makes most of its game modes available. Smash The Star, Missions, and Private Parties are always available, but every other mode is rotated out on what seems to be a random schedule. You get a brief heads up when a different mode will replace the currently available one, and once that change happens, that will be the option for a few days. This means basic modes such as Foamstar’s version of Capture The Flag (Rubber Duck Party) and Ranked Matches will be gone for several days, instead of just available to select at any time.
My guess is that it’s meant as a hook to keep people logging in, to see if the mode they want is finally available, but in practice, this will lead to players angrily leaving. Smash The Star is the most fun mode anyway, but I get my fill of it after three rounds or fewer. It’s not an all-day game.
The experience feels unfinished, half-baked, missing elements to make it fulfilling. You’ll spend time leveling up just for a mode that may have left yesterday, then discover it wasn’t even half as interesting as Smash The Star. The Missions are too short, and again feel like an extended tutorial parading as a bonus mode.
Foamstars lacks a strong hook, a core strength to keep me invested in logging in more than once every couple of days, and even then rarely for more than two or three matches. For a game that can only stay alive with a strong dedicated base, I don’t see repeat customers with this experience. If Foamstars had no competition, it would still look underbaked, despite how it can offer moments of genuine fun.
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