Imagine the scene. You’re at the park, and a stray football rolls your way. You go to kick it back towards a bunch of lads having a kickaround, only for your shoe to go flying off in the process. Much to your embarrassment, everyone cheers. The only positive is that if someone managed to catch it on film, there’s potential for a viral video – especially if that wayward shoe accidentally hit a bystander in the face. Now imagine that clip was a video game. You’ve just imagined Shoe it All – or at least, you have if you can also imagine that shoe being on fire.
Much like Angry Birds and its countless imitators, Shoe It All is a simple one-button physics-based game with a focus on achieving three-star rankings across the board. It has launched simultaneously on consoles and mobiles at a low price, and thanks to its vibrant stylised visuals, it doesn’t look too out of place on modern systems. Being in 3D definitely helps here too, and there’s a punk rock soundtrack to bolster the presentation.
Swinging requires you to press left and right on the analogue stick to build momentum, ready to launch a shoe at the desired angle. And yes, you can swing all the way around. There are more than 65 stages, with some giving you more than 30 shoes to fling and others restricting you to a single shoe that must be aimed with acute precision.
Things start simple, as you’d expect, simply knocking signs over and causing cyclists to tumble with a well-aimed throw. There are windows to break, shop displays to destroy, vending machines to shake and similar pursuits too. Smartly, the three-star ranking system changes from one stage to the next. Completing a stage with the minimum number of shoes is common, while most challenges have a stage-specific star to gain for hitting a certain object or achieving a secret goal. You may even need to experiment to succeed.
Just as you start mastering the physics engine, potentially completing stages on either the first or second attempt, things are shaken up with flaming shoes that eject from your foot faster. Unsurprisingly, they set things ablaze too, ending with a boss fight against someone armed with an extinguisher. Then, for the final act, shoes with magnets are introduced, duly drawn towards metal and other magnets. While this may sound like a potential headache, the difficulty is pretty lax throughout – I was able to blitz through all 65 stages in just over an hour, even gaining three-star rankings for over a quarter of them. Curiously, the swing’s position never changes, which seems like a missed opportunity to introduce extra nuance.
A handful of extras provide a reason to return after seeing the credits roll, taking the form of secret challenges, collectable stickers for an album, and a speed-running mode with online leaderboards. The bonus challenges feel like they should have been part of a fourth act, finally putting true skill to the test – such as having to hit six moving targets with just six shoes. Still, they do give something to focus on should you want to see and achieve everything. To get your money’s worth, you’ll probably need to – £6.99 for 2-3 hours of play isn’t exactly the best value around in the console space. It perhaps puts it out of impulse-buy range for anyone curious too.
While the underlying theme of teen anarchy suits the experience well, I did expect a Katamari-esque eccentric streak. Returning characters, such as a pigeon, aren’t really used to their fullest, simply being another thing to fling your shoe at and not to set up a gag. As such, it’s likely to be easily amused younger gamers who get the biggest kick out of this.
Amberbite Games & Bright Gambit’s Shoe It All! is out now on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC, Mac, iOS and macOS.