Review - OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood

By Jon Evans
Formats reviewed - PS Vita, PS4

Developers; Roll7
Publisher; Roll7
Formats; PS Vita, PS4
US Release Date; 3/3/15
EU Release Date; 4/3/15

I’ve just had to tear myself away from the last levels of OlliOlli2 to write this. I’ve been checking my watch; just five more minutes before I start writing, just want to see if I can do this level landing on all perfect manuals just one more time… and that pretty much epitomises the feeling I get playing OlliOlli2.  My fingers feel out of place on a keyboard, my muscle memory is all doo-lally from gripping my controller for too long. I just want to get back to click, snap and whirr my way through the crazy neon bends and jumps of Olliwood. 

This is the same game as before, but better, prettier and more infuriatingly compelling than the previous. Roll7 have iterated on their BAFTA Nominated original hit game, but in the best possible way. The controls are still spot on, the feel of the skateboard is still the closest experience to real skating in a video game to date, and the variety of tricks and grinds are still both challenging and exhilarating to command.

The control system is exactly the same as before; pull the left stick to compress into a jump, release quickly upwards to snap the ollie into the air and press x to time your landing and increase your point value. Spin your stick, press the shoulder buttons to evolve the trick and pull down on the left stick to grind. OlliOlli veterans will be thankful that this hasn’t changed. Many of them, myself included, have still been playing the original to date, still trying to breakthrough to Rad mode, so jumping into OlliOlli2 means a comfortable transition to carry on the play. 

There have been a few additions to this though to add to the challenge. Now you can pull left or right on the left stick as you land with your x button to hit the ground with a manual or nose manual. This minor addition creates a whole new level of gameplay and challenge, but it also means we can never go back. In the original game if you land after a long combination of tricks, it stops the point multiplier there and then. Now with the manual landing, the combo continues, multiplying and multiplying to the point where you can have an entire level-long chain of tricks. This has become my obsession. To whizz through a level, knowing you are missing out on points, is painful and the developers know it. There are other new combinations of tricks that can be pulled off, you can revert to a manual, you can change your grind stance on the rails, and on the ground you can switch your stance between regular and goofy, which turns tricks into the nollie versions. Roll7 know that we have been playing, and know we can manage the new combinations. It feels like we’ve graduated Skate High and gone to Olliwood Skate University. The only thing that missing is grabs, which may be one button combination too many, and could be saved for our postgraduate course.

OlliOlli2 excels, too, in level design. Not only are the visuals improved, moving away from the retro 8-bit feel of the original, to a softer, smoother higher detailed good-looking cousin. Your skater has more frames of animation, and moves more realistically. The tracks you skate along now also have curves which, again, make a big difference to gameplay. Timing is king in OlliOlli2. Landing exactly as you hit x gives you a perfect score. With the rolling curves of these tracks slowly rising towards you it changes the feel of the timing you were used to previously so subtly and palpably to, again, add to the challenge. The visuals are pleasing too. The scrolling backgrounds have more depth and detail and the level of interactivity has also increased, with lens flare, startled birds, rushing trains, fireworks and explosive effects. The settings of each level, too, are more varied and pleasing to look at, each adding a unique slant on gameplay. 

The theme of this game are film sets, as the name suggests, but the environments and their respective dangers are very real. Whether you race through the city of Olliwood itself, or past the lush jungles of a South American Aztec landscape, pop an ollie and grind along the railroad carriage in a dynamite-laden Wild West, zoom along the roller coaster track of a post-apocalyptic carnival ride or even slide over futuristic acid-filled pits and vapouriser units of a sci-fi world akin to Metropolis,  you have an eye-popping variety of obstacles to overcome. The soundtrack is pretty cool again too, with tunes from Cid Rim, Lone, Faulty DL, Submerse and Mike Slot, and they mix and blend together well into the background of the game without overpowering your concentration. 

OlliOlli2 looks great, with a wonderful variety of tracks to skate over, and with fresher and more interesting levels than the previous game all with the tongue-in-cheek humour of the original. The PS4 version looks lovely too, with the added bonus of having rumble feedback on the DS4 controller as you skate. As before, moving from Vita to PS4 is a bit of a weird disconnect in terms of the feel of the controller in your hands, and you might find it disconcerting at first. OlliOlli2 bursts with colour on the big screen with popping, vibrant tones and fast flowing visuals. There’s even a cheeky warning to change your TV refresh rate to ‘Game’ mode due to the speed of the game. OlliOlli 2 is cross-buy and cross save, so you can move from Vita to PS4 whenever your whim takes you. At time of press, cross-save worked fine, via a slightly convoluted method, and Roll7 have confirmed this will be fixed in a day 1 patch to make it a smoother and simpler process.  

The objectives for every level are as fun, challenging and infuriating as before, and the developers have thought carefully about how they work with each level. Many times I have come a cropper at the exact point I thought I had made my level long combo with one devilishly placed obstacle near the end. Roll7 are experts at forcing a particular rhythm into you as you traverse the levels to throw a slope or different surface at you at the final furlong just to muck up your timing and knock you off your deck. It requires you to practise, experiment and learn the levels to ace them. Some of the levels have alternate routes for you to choose, and to allow you to pick up goodies and items that may be hidden. It adds to the interest of the game and the replayability. Completing all the initial Amateur levels, unlocks the Pro levels, with higher points targets and more demanding combos and landings. Achieving every objective in every level unlocks the famous RAD mode, which demands the extreme from you in both the perfection of your tricks and landings. Trust me, you’ll still be working through these when you read my OlliOlli3 review.

The game interface has had an overhaul too, with a much improved user experience that flows well from one screen to the next. Touchscreen controls have been eschewed for all-button controls which is very welcome. In particular I don’t miss the ‘play again’ button which used to hang very close to the top left hand side of the screen and was very easy to hit with your thumb at the most inopportune moment. This is now the triangle button only and is a much more user friendly place to be. 

The Tricktionary is still there with even more tricks to perform and is an essential part of the game, to memorise stick configurations, but the tutorial section, now called ‘The Skatepark’, is still a great place to practise the more complex moves and is actually tied into some of the later levels objectives, forcing you to practice these moves before unlocking later levels. This is an important process, as you’ll need these skills for the last few levels, which are brutal. Spots are back too, allowing you to pit your skills against your online friends and attempt to scale the leader boards. Leaderboards are fully working and much more integrated into OlliOlli2, as they were a very highly requested feature from the previous game. The Daily Grind is also back, allowing you just one go at scoring your highest combo on a daily level with your online buddies.  There is also a local split multiplayer mode, called combo-rush coming very soon after launch and I had a chance to play this at EGX last year. This lets up to four players compete together on the same screen to score the highest points on a particular level. Watch the site later for more details about this. 

Ultimately the level of challenge is higher in OlliOlli2 but the difficulty scales up well and shouldn't put off newcomers to the game. The last levels, in the Sci-fi world are both frantic and blisteringly hard, and demand a lot from the player in terms of concentration, practice and multi-tasking, but are fabulously satisfying. Crack the trick of landing, and the rest of the game clicks making your experience much more fulfilling.

OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood is an excellent update to the original, with plenty of new gameplay to get your trucks into. It looks beautiful, the levels are more varied, the tricks catalogue is more complete and the challenge and fun has been elevated to new heights. It’s a generous offering to have the game on both the Vita and the PS4 for one price and with the promise of multiplayer later on, it is a much more complete package. A must-have on the Sony platforms. 

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Images courtesy of Roll7
Some images captured from Vita Version by reviewer
Game provided by Roll7