3.5/5 ★ – jdraco's review of Subway Surfers.

Subway Surfers is yet another iOS game that put up 2018 LeBron-type numbers for me as a kid I played this game so damn much, and I remember specifically, too, that I had my older brother hack in a bunch of coins for me so that I could buy all the expensive characters and hoverboards And then I started showing them off in school to everyone and I thought my dick was so big Those really were the days But now it’s 2025, and I’m far from a kid. I’ve got hair on my sack, bills to pay, and a nagging job that’s progressively draining me of my sanity and goodwill… What the fuck was I talking about again… Oh, Subway Surfers So yeah, with all that being said, this game actually holds up pretty well It still has that same fun, addicting gameplay that I remember as a kid All you do is swipe left, right, up, and down all the time to maneuver around this small course to try to avoid various obstacles, oncoming subway cars, and, of course, the obese police officer and his dog that are constantly one fucking step behind you no matter where you are Seriously, anywhere that you are on the course, if you’re hit by something, then they appear right behind you even if you’re in the air when it happens This cop and his dog are fucking omnipotent beings Anyway, though, this simplicity of the gameplay is what makes it so addicting It’s so easy to just play a round of this for minutes upon minutes at a time with the game speed constantly increasing as you go further along, causing your reaction times to have to be more precise and calculated You also need to take advantage of the power-ups that you’re given, which are either the bouncy boots, the jetpack, the pogo stick, or the multiplier thing that doesn’t really help with anything But the first three do help you in obvious ways Obviously the bouncy boots help you jump higher, the jetpack lets you travel above the level for a short period of time, and the pogo stick does as well, for a shorter period of time, though, but at the end of it you can grab 1 of 3 other power-ups that it gives you Oh, I also forgot another power-up, which is the magnet All that one does, though, is just attract coins to you I like all these power-ups, though, and they do a good job of spicing up the gameplay, and grabbing them becomes absolutely essential as you start to rack up higher scores And another thing that's essential to use for racking up higher scores as well is the hoverboards Basically, if you double-tap the screen, your character will hop on a hoverboard for a short period of time, essentially just enabling you to take a hit if you need to and potentially save a run Although some of them actually do switch up the gameplay a bit and can be used for more than just taking a hit, Like, I know for a fact there are ones that glide in the air when you jump or ones that help you jump higher or move faster, and probably some other gameplay-enhancing boards as well that I just can’t think of However, unless you want to drop actual fucking hard-earned money on Subway Surfers, then you’re not getting these, because they’re expensive as shit Yeah, for some reason in this game now you don’t purchase things with coins Instead you use these blue keys to purchase things, like characters, costumes, hoverboards, etc And I’m not going to lie, I hate the keys I really don’t know why they’re in the game. I don’t understand why they didn’t just stick with the coins being what you use to purchase things I mean, I don’t even know why the coins are still in the game What the fuck do they even do? And what’s fucked up is that they’re still the main collectible that you get whenever you play a round, and they don’t even fucking do anything (except purchase hoverboards, I’m pretty sure) So yeah, the keys are a terrible addition What’s not a terrible addition, though, is this new event that they added called “200th World Tour” Yeah, I don’t really know what this is, and I don’t know if they do events like this all the time, but I really do enjoy this world tour event Basically it just has you going to different places around the world and playing courses that are themed around the place you’re in So if the course is New York or some shit, then the map might be kind of grey and blue and overall just city-themed But then if we’re to go to, say, Brazil, then the color palette and theming would be kind of tropical and have a green, blue, and brown type color scheme I don’t know, I mean, these really aren’t that significant of changes, because at the end of the day these are just a differently-themed version of the same course that you play over and over again But still I do enjoy playing in all these different courses and seeing how they vary And then also in this mode, your goal is to collect 15 of these briefcase collectibles in each level so that you can then unlock a prize It’s pretty nice; I like the event mode. This was overall a solid addition to the game Umm, let’s see, what else… Oh, the unlockable characters in this game are pretty cool I mean, you’ve got a robot, an Asian lady dressed as an alien, there’s a blue T-Rex character And the cool thing about these characters is that most of them have different skin variants But the only problem is, you have to use fucking keys to unlock them, so you’ll probably never get the chance to use the variants unless you’re a child and you steal your mom’s credit card Also, while on the topic of the characters, I just thought I should bring up that as a kid I had a crush on the character “Tricky” Take that information and do what you want with it; it’s all yours And then I guess the last 2 things I have written down in my notes for me to talk about are, firstly, the fact that this game nowadays is usually being displayed over some fucking TikTok video And then also I wanted to point out how subway cars appear out of thin air and how that’s stupid, I guess But now actually typing it out, I realize that it is a fictional mobile game, and the fact that I fixated on that point and thought that it was a strong enough thing for me to talk about in my review is quite sad, and now I’m depressed So, I’m going to end this review Overall this is a good game, and if you want just a solid, time-wasting mobile game to play, Then this is a good one to go with So I’m giving Subway Surfers a 3.5/5