Rollerdrome review

The grace of a ballet dancer and the punch of a sawed-off shotgun brilliantly converge in Rollerdrome. The results are some of the most mesmeric scoring runs you’ll find in 2022.

Tutorials can be boring undertakings, putting players through a succession of tedious tests. But surprisingly, I didn’t want Rollerdrome’s lessons to end. Roll7’s (OlliOlli, OlliOlli World) latest effort maintains their admiration for skating. But this time out, instead of riding a board, you’ll participate in a vicious bloodsport, where athletes lace up roller skates and wield guns to eliminate opponents. Essentially, it’s roller derby for a sadistic. spectacle-consumed society, building on the social commentary of Norman Jewison’s 1975 film, Rollerball.

The sport is played in sprawling skateparks that wouldn’t seem out of place in the early Tony Hawk titles. Initially, you’ll learn to grab, spin, and flip. But where Activision’s titles punished you for an imprecise landing, Rollerdrome makes sure you rarely stumble. And that’s what makes the tutorial so engaging. After years of shredding virtual skin in Tony Hawk, witnessing lead character Kara Hassan gracefully elude impending face plants is entrancing. If you’re like me, you’ll spend at least fifteen minutes admiring how Rollerdrome eliminates player wipeouts, sporadically contributing a recovery animation to the end of your botched jumps.

She Shoots, She Scores

But that’s hardly the only superhuman ability you’ll harness. You’ll grab, spin, and somersault after launching yourself from ramps. While much of this maneuverability makes Rollerdrome so mesmerizing to watch, you’ll need to stunt to refill your limited supply of ammunition. Later, you’ll learn how to grind rails and wallride, expanding your navigational arsenal. Save for the rare moment when it doesn’t feel like you’re given full control of the camera, Rollerdrome’s responsiveness is very close to faultlessness. That’s important because each of the game’s stages feels like a thorny puzzle waiting to be cracked.

Soon, you’ll be given a pair of pistols to shoot at rivals as well as the ability to slow down time. What follows is the sensation that Roll7 managed to merge the stunting of Jet Grind Radio with the gunplay of Max Payne. When the tutorial announced that I had shot enough foes to move ahead, I refused to stop killing. There was something sublimely satisfying about pulling myself out of a forward flip before emptying the rest of a clip into an adversary. Just like your stunting, there’s assistance to the gunplay.  Reposition the game camera toward a foe and Kara automatically bends her arms, keeping adversaries in her sights.

Skate or Die (From Mecha Artillery)

But I’m thankful that I eventually moved on from the game’s lessons. Rollerdrome’s campaign follows Kara’s ascension up the sport’s rankings. It’s a wonderfully cinematic trajectory, with oversized text overlays announcing each stop of the tour before doors open, and Hassan races onto the field. It’s a modest inclusion, but the sequence provides a point-of-view of an athlete anxiously reconnoitering the opposition ahead of her. Then, there are the moments of quiet contemplation before each match, allowing you to explore a locker room in first-person mode. Subtly, newspapers and magazines detail the dystopia outside. Like most gladiatorial narratives, it’s evident that Kara is a reluctant participant, her athleticism exploited for viewership.

The campaign assesses your skillset through a succession of increasingly tough challenges. Playfields become split into separate areas, each accessible by a jump over a precarious canyon. Adversaries are pushovers at first, awkwardly trying to swat at you as you whizz by. But soon, Rollerdrome places them on elevated platforms, requiring you to consider how you’ll approach them. Foes begin carrying more deadly weapons as well. You’ll face sniper rifles, rocket launching brutes, and opponents who can shield themselves. Later, you’ll confront rivals like mechanized tanks outfitted with multiple weapon systems. Your own arsenal grows correspondingly, with your dual-wielding pistols accompanied by a shotgun, a grenade launcher, and even a laser-crossbow that can bounce bolts off walls.

Tony Hawk-style Secondary Objectives, Too

Mercifully, there’s always visual information that signals danger. As you’re whizzing through each arena, the telltale crimson indicator of sniper scopes pursue you doggedly. Breaking their visual lock is as easy as hitting a dodge button. And if the fussy precision of Soulslike parrying has you worried, know that Rollerdrome is delightfully lenient with its timing. Stages are geared toward score-chasing as much as they are for completing, so even the game’s combo timer is forgiving.

Climbing up the leaderboards means refining advanced abilities. Triggering bullet time immediately after a “Perfect Dodge” activates a Super Reflex. Regardless of what weapon you’re using, the amount of damage that Kara dished out grows intensely. While it’s not necessary to complete a stage, the technique permits players to take down the toughest enemies with pistols. Occasionally, it’s even possible to create situations where enemies injure each other.

But if you’re not interested in the kind of challenges that spur you toward mastery, various game settings can reduce the level of adversity. You’ll surrender any hope for a leaderboard spot for options like invulnerability, though. For some, that might be invaluable, as stages can feel punishing with everyone gunning for Kara. Expect some pretty intense increases in the challenge level, which feels like a Roll7 mandate.

Conclusion

Had Rollerdrome reproduced the near-photorealism and pop-punk flippancy of the Tony Hawk series, Kara’s trek wouldn’t have been as memorable. Instead, the game imagines a near-future with a Moebius-inspired aesthetic, retro-futuristic fonting, moody synth tracks, and English announcers that announce casualties as calmly as a fault at a Wimbledon match. Punctuating each bungled run is the steely-eyed gaze of a gloating enemy, which might be one of the harshest ‘game over’ screens in recent memory.

Skating games enchant players with the possibility of staggering athleticism. Rollerdrome ups the ante appreciably by adding gunplay and slow motion. The result is an experience with the elegance of ballet and the intensity of five-star wanted rating in Grand Theft Auto. With their latest, Roll7 demonstrates how multiplayer deathmatches can be reworked into brilliant single-player score chase. I really hope other developers are paying attention.

Rollerdrome was played on PC with
review code provided by the publisher.