Relive the shopping cart pain of Jackass in the racing game Slackers: Carts Of Glory

How many bones have you broken? It sucks, the popping sound they make is rude. I’d rather break virtual, non-physical bones. Slackers: Carts Of Glory seems to be an accomplice in this endeavor. It’s basically that one bit in Jackass where the gang goes downhill in shopping carts at great risk to their physical and mental health, as they usually do. The arcade racing game came out yesterday and has online multiplayer, so you can break someone else’s bones too. Let’s see it in action.

In single player, it’s more of a time trial than a race. In this case, the finish line is a liquor store at the bottom of a hill. The store is closing soon, and you have to smash through the windows before time runs out. There are beer pickups you can grab as you hurtle down the asphalt slopes. Drink beer to “quench your thirst and push yourself to insane speeds,” developers Falling Saints say.

It’s a very drunken game, then, perhaps good for a hangout or a lazy fall afternoon with friends who share an uneasy fondness for Johnny Knoxville et al. battling it out in shopping carts and covering the parking lots of the United States in thin splatters of their own blood. My own memories of these sequences in the Jackass TV series are hazy, and I’m honestly not sure I’d dare watch them anymore. The visually explosive but relatively tame intro to the team’s 2002 film is about as much as I can handle.

But ragdoll video game figurines? I can handle that! Slackers: Carts Of Glory was recommended to me on Steam because I like smashy racing game Wreckfest and faceplantin’ skateboarding simulator Session. And wow, yeah, nice work, algorithm. There seems to be some good limb flailing going on as you uncontrollably leap from your cart (I especially like the quick cut to the store’s CCTV just as you crash through the windows). You can pick it up on Steam if you also have a suppressed thirst for beer and ill-advised stunts.