Review - OlliOlliby Jon Evans
Format reviewed on Vita |
|
I'm pretty stoked to be reviewing OlliOlli. Many years ago I used to be an avid skater. I lived, ate, breathed, bled skateboarding. I grew up in Maidstone, a town in the South East of the UK. It's pretty much a painfully elaborate one-way system with a few shops, and a river running round it, and couldn't be more urbanised and dripping with the shit 60's concrete-mad design of the time. I was a bored teenager, too young to drive and too wannabee-cool to get around with my out-dated chopper. Skateboarding was enjoying a resurgence in the mid 80's and I was well into it. I had the clothes, spent many a pilgrimage to Slam City Skates and the South Bank in London, whiled away a summer building a half-pipe with my mate and his dad in their back garden, subscribed to Thrasher magazine and travelled to Romford Skate Park to watch the big boys show off their rad skillz. Do you remember wearing holes in your Converse All Stars from rubbing against the rip-grip when performing Ollies? You were probably a skater. Now I am older and fatter, wobbling around on a plank on wheels is problematic. Nevertheless I still have a love for skating and still visit the South Bank to photograph the skaters with all the other tourists.
|
The South Bank 2007
|
Grinding the helicopter props is, like, totally awesome.
|
OlliOlli is the latest game from Indie developers Roll7. Having already released an interesting catalogue of imaginative and original games and apps, OlliOlli is the latest pixellated packet of fun to hit the Vita tomorrow from the team. At its simplest, OlliOlli is a 2D survival platformer, in the style of Canabalt, but with the depth of gameplay you might see in the AAA Skate or SSX games and with a whole lot more colour and love of the genre. You control a skateboarder, with a vast library of classic tricks that can be pulled off as you hurtle down through a landscape of rails, walls and other themed obstacles. Each trick you pull has a score attached to it, levelled according to difficulty and the aim is to score as high as you can. This sounds easy, but isn't quite like the non-realism of SSX where you have plenty of room for error. You have to time your tricks and land your board in a very specific way, otherwise you end up with a rather gruesome face plant. This happens a lot and is a very important part of the game. I repeat, you will face plant A LOT.
|
Are those traffic cones or horrible deadly spikes? That's right..
|
Much like real skating, learning a trick in OlliOlli is all about practice, practice, practice. Pulling down the left stick on the Vita forces your skater into a crouch position, ready to leap into the air. Quickly letting go of the stick causes him to jump up, with the board sticking to his feet, and is the first trick you learn. Slamming your foot down on the back of the board, causing the front to kick up while simultaneously sliding your front foot forward to push the flipping skateboard level (also causing the wear and tear on your All Stars), but also off the ground, is the eponymous Ollie, and is a right of passage for all new skaters. It is fitting that this is the same in the game, but is also the most important skill you learn. Everything else, save grinding, stems from the Ollie.
|
|
|
How you land your board is also very important. Tapping the X button lets you land safely, and forgetting to do this gives you a 'sloppy' rating, trashing your amazing multiplier you have stacked up already with tricks. In some cases this mis-timing at a critical obstacle also means an instant Face Plant, usually preceded by much pin-wheeling of arms and bouncing of broken body parts over the terrain, Trials Style. Not only do you need to press X to land, the timing is critical. It has to be timed to perfectly coincide with the trucks hitting the ground. Getting this right gives you a 'perfect' landing, and a lovely phat score.
Too soon and you get a down-scaled proportion of points with ratings such as 'Sick' and 'Sketchy'. Over time, you learn an arcane intuitive lock-on and the perfect landing becomes second nature. Perfect landings also help you to maintain your momentum on rail grinds stopping you from slowing down. Landing on a rail or wall requires a down pull on the left stick to maintain your balance and you can also pull tricks while travelling down, but the risk reward/system here heightens. It means a higher combo score, but is inherently even more difficult to land and care must be taken The click, scrape, whirr sounds of the skateboard as it rolls and grinds over surfaces is spot-on. I swear I can even hear the clacking of the NMB speed bearings in my trucks as the board travels over the concrete. On the flip side, the grunts and startled shouts of your skater as he misses his grind or mucks up his landing are also a nice touch. I sometimes wished I could find a massive drop just to see how much damage and bone- crunching I could hear as he flopped to his doom onto his face. |
|
This is where the genius of OlliOlli comes into its own. Timing in this game is everything, just like IRL skating. Later levels force you to land perfectly otherwise your skater just cannot complete at a standard pace. You need the boost a perfect landing gives you to reach that next rail or precipice. OlliOlli is also hideously mean. You can spend three or four levels zoning into the timings required, jump, stick twirl, click X to land, jump, stick push up, pull down to grind, snap and so on then suddenly the hight of the obstacles or the drops you encounter change, and your timing is thrown out, forcing you to re-learn every time. This sounds like a pain, but it is what turns this game from a nice, casual pick up and play time waster into an addictive, compulsive disorder, bastard-time-suck that invaded all walks of my life and sleep. Seriously, I can only pull the 'it's for a review article' excuse on my poor wife before it becomes grounds for divorce.
|
This is very useful in the latter, harder parts of the game.
|
In fact, it is the random targets in the levels that gives me the most enjoyment of the game. Sometimes you'll spend hours on one level reaching some of the targets, trying like crazy to grind all the rails, roofs and walls, to suddenly have to complete without grinding at all. This turns the level into a completely new game with new challenges. Knowing this, and the level of attention that Roll7 must have put in to accommodate both sets of challenges must have meant for some late nights for the team. In terms of detail, the pixel art style is perfect for this graffiti-spattered urban style genre, yet it still retains crystal clear beauty on the Vita. The soundtrack is well suited to the game, with a variety of styles from the now-retro dubstep to jazz fusion, and ambient including artists such as the Qemists and Dorian Concept. I sometimes feel like I'm listening to an experimental version of Paul's Boutique. It was a mature decision for Roll7 to avoid the cringe worthy Hip-Hop style soundtracks that have peppered other extreme sports games in the past (and thank god we don't have the awful voice over guy from Cool Boarders). I only wish there was more of it, as it does begin to noticeably loop when you put the hours of practice in. Licensing a large set of artists for a soundtrack is expensive, so I'm glad Roll7 invested in the mechanics rather than the sounds, but I do wish there were more tracks to listen to considering how much I have been playing this.
Shit.
|
In career mode, the game consists of five different environments, each with five amateur levels that have to be unlocked consecutively before you can move onto the next area. Each level had its own specific objectives that can be achieved to max out the level. Reach the high score of each level and the next is unlocked, however you also have targets such as pulling off certain combos, landing very specific tricks, jumping gaps or picking up various collectibles like spray cans which are positioned in particularly hard to get to and gnarly spots on the way town to the finish line. Complete all these targets and you unlock a Pro level each with its own harder levels and targets. Finish all these, and the mind-boggling hard RAD Mode awaits you. I'm yet to reach RAD mode. The game has become an obsession in OCD completist-style perfectionism, and with eight days since I received the preview code, I'm still yet to reach RAD mode. I hope to update this review when I do, but despite losing many hours of sleep, and my hands becoming Lon Chaney Nosferatu-like claws I'm not quite there.
|
|
Needs more practice. Ahem.
|
Spot Mode lets you demonstrate your combo skills on smaller sections of the levels with your score being posted on the OlliOlli leaderboards. As soon as you stop moving and land on flat ground the 'Spot' finishes. Much like the style of skating this 'showing off' is central to the sport and it's a nice addition to the games as well as adding depth to your purchase. I can see friends who own the game competing to best each other's scores and improving their skills for the main part of the game. At present there are only reviewers playing the game, but my head still hurts at the scores of some of the people playing this, I've no idea how they do it.
To really test your skills there is also 'The Daily Grind', which is like an elite version of the Spot. This is a new unique level, posted by Roll7 on a daily basis where players compete to get the highest score. The catch is that you only get one go at this. The level can be practised on as many times as you want and the ever present countdown timer is there reminding you of how long you can practise in the 24 hours the level is available.I've had a couple of goes with the daily grind and have had my soul crushed both times with my pathetic score of zero posted online for all to see. I suspect the Daily Grind is something to return to when I have completed RAD mode. At its heart OlliOlli shows a passionate love of skateboarding coupled with a gameplay mechanic that reaches crack-cocaine levels of addiction. Never has 'one more level' been so true. This will consume your every waking hour and send you into controller-throwing paroxysms of rage. Despite this there is also humour, charm and warmth that so often is forgotten in Video Games. This is one of the best games for the Vita, with excellent, tight controls and massive replayability. It's a cracker of a game, and bodes very well for Roll7 and whatever trick they pull off next. Totally, like, rad, dude. |
Wrap Up
|
Good - Stonkingly good fan service for lovers of Skateboarding, controls as tight as a gnats chuff, great level of challenge and hours of replayability. Good use of online leaderboards. Looks and sounds great too.
Bad - Soundtrack is lovely, but quickly loops after extended gameplay and becomes all too familiar. |
4.75/5 |
Review Copy of game provided by Roll7
Images courtesy of Roll7 and screen grabs from reviewer's Vita
South Bank Photo Copyright Jon Evans 2007
Images courtesy of Roll7 and screen grabs from reviewer's Vita
South Bank Photo Copyright Jon Evans 2007
