Rollerdrome Review: Skate Or Die

When I was losing hours to Roll7's latest side-scrolling skateboard platformer, OlliOlli World, I never said to myself, I wonder what this would be like if my skater had a gun. Roll7 obviously did, though, and the result is Rollerdrome. Though it makes departures from the skating games that Roll7 is known for, Rollerdrome nails what's most important about them: it's an easy game to play that makes you feel awesome while you're playing it.

Rollerdrome is similar to Roll7's other titles in that it's a single-player skating game that emphasizes performing tricks, but this isn't just an OlliOlli game with guns. Rollerdrome eschews the side-scrolling nature of Roll7's famous platformer series for fully 3D skate park-like arenas; as you skate through a single area, you must utilize walls and ramps to loop yourself around and to perform tricks. Populating this arena are enemies that spawn in various locations, meaning that while you're doing manuals and flips, you also have to take down the bat-wielding melee fighters and distant snipers who want you dead.

Also differentiating Rollerdrome from OlliOlli is the fact that the former is not a skateboarding game, but rather, a rollerskating game, set in the future as imagined through the lens of the 1970s. Rollerdrome draws heavily from the sport of roller derby, while also taking inspiration from the 1975 James Caan movie Roller Ball, which was about a near-future bloodsport run by a corporation with nefarious intentions. That's pretty much what's going on in Rollerdrome, too.

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