Rollerdrome review of an interesting experiment for PlayStation and PC

The year is 2030 and a multinational corporation known as the Matterhorn is controlling and running the entire economy with an iron fist. To make sure the public didn’t notice, the company created the Rollerdrome, a fierce sports show where top athletes fight to get out of arenas full of fully armed opponents alive. Modern gladiators using roller skates, pistols and rocket launchers instead of chariots and gladi.

this Rollerdrome reviewIt’s Roll7’s new effort (remember the funny and puccioso OlliOlli? They’re, but slightly worse) and not a sequel to classics like Rollerblade or The Man on the Run.

What is a rollerdrome?

If we wanted to catalog the Rollerdrome, we could say this is one. third person arena shooter The main task of the player is to overcome undamaged levels filled with enemies by getting the highest possible score.

Classical high score It can be obtained by killing opponents in series and with something that improves the score multiplier, and by gliding in style through arenas filled with ramps, halfpipes and railings. Loyal to the OlliOlli series that made them stand out, Roll7 decided to change its formula by providing the game’s hero Kara Hassan with skates to fly through the arenas.

However, it is no simple visual or narrative tinsel: to be successful in the Rollerdrome, you must first master Kara’s moves, keep her alive, but also be able to perform. cheats and improvementsRequired to reload four guns designed by Roll7. These special weapons actually recharge automatically with shots just by grabbing, flipping or running through walls. While all this is going on, lead bullets and more will be whistling around you.

Fortunately, this is also possible slow down time It’s almost essential for aiming in the most exciting moments, because it’s always on the agenda to shoot while doing somersaults and after dodging.

Tough but make-up

Handling the evolutions isn’t as complicated as it might be in the best skate games, but still very technical game and sometimes quite complex. Despite the addition of a standard command layout for the type and a few keys for snapping and flipping, the main hurdle to overcome is the number of inputs that need to be handled simultaneously.

From the very beginning all movements and skills It will be unlocked by Kara Hassan, along with the most powerful weapons, throughout the campaign, and therefore master all these variants to give a sense of progression. After banging your nose on tanks, guided missiles and teleporting enemies, it’ll be fun to come back and test yourself in the first arenas to learn how they master the skill of combos, dodges and levels all the while. to jump high, reload your weapons or dodge enemy shots.

The tough and naive will be able to try to climb the Rolledrome rankings (even online) with their strength, while others may decide to activate some additional assistance to allow Kara to save the skin and put a lever behind the steering wheel at the Matterhorn. . These Help It ranges from more liberally managing the progression of the story, removing the minimum requirements for access to the next chapter, to making the protagonist immortal, thereby killing everyone without much effort.

It’s not a compulsion to do. game available to everyone, without bastardizing the (up) balance found by Roll7. The most skilled or those looking for a challenge will have all the tools to master Kara’s moves and the Rollerdrome’s gameplay, while others will have a rock to cling to so they don’t get frustrated.

By the time you reach the end of the short campaign (but the total number of hours is highly dependent on your skill and activated helpers), not only will the Bloodthirst mode be activated, but the developers promise that post-launch content will always stay fresh. offer.

retro style

What is immediately striking about the Rollerdrome is its retro graphic style. In fact, the British developers have achieved the most natural effect possible by keeping the required specifications very low. If running the game at 60fps on PlayStation 4 and PS5 should be fine, on PC this milestone is easily reached even in configurations that are a few years old or not intended for gaming, such as AMD Ryzen 7. PRO 4750U used for testing.

As we said, thanks to all artistic direction When analyzed more carefully, the Rollerdrome is not a technical marvel: the models of the enemies are identical, almost static, and because they have a single array, they don’t have to show who knows what the AI ​​is. Land exclusively on moves and targets. In contrast, the main character shows many different movements that are well animated and fluid, except when the system forces the animation to “tie” the animation to a handrail or ledge.

this controls they are usually quite accurate and sensitive. Having Kara on the skate and always going straight makes it a bit difficult to change direction and turn in the strait, and risks getting stuck in a corner or the biggest enemies. It rarely happens, but in the midst of confusion there can be deadly obstacles.

rocking level design: Some arenas are fun and complex enough to guarantee the speed of movement, jump and development, while others are more anonymous. Also, the idea of ​​putting cliffs in the middle of some episodes didn’t drive us crazy, as they add little in our opinion because they don’t interrupt either combos or gameplay. We would also like a little more variety: the enemy types are always the same and behave in a standard way, plus we would prefer non-standard fights.