I have a confession to make: I never really liked skating games. Something about them just never spoke to me, yet I know people still play them on the PS2 for that aesthetic of the 2000s: the skate punk, the drab color palette of the concrete jungle, and a screen filled with weirdly named tricks. In comes Rollerdrome: a game oozing with energetic synthwave, colorful cel-shaded art style, and… guns? Now you have my attention!
Air-diving in slow-motion to shoot enemies with dual pistols? Sounds familiar…
It’s 2030 and you are Kara Hassan, an upcoming player in ‘Rollerdrome’: a blood sport where contestants with firearms fight waves of hired combatants (‘House Players’) while also performing roller-skate tricks. The tricks are there not only for style points; they are how you keep your guns loaded. Your objective is to skate around different levels and be the last woman standing to make your way into the finals. Between the stages, there are short narrative sections about the game’s retro-future world, the Rollerdrome sport, and its’ players. They are nice breathers for lore enthusiasts, but personally, I didn’t really care for them.
Gameplay in Rollerdrome is a back-and-forth dance of two very different genres, which I found surprisingly fun. To put it briefly, it feels like Max Payne having the wildest fever dream after a night of Jet Set Radio and Tony Hawk games. At its’ core it’s a third-person shooter: you shoot and dodge enemies, collect health, and use slow-motion to aim. Giving the character roller-skates is not just a gimmick for reloading, it creates a whole new dimension of play: fast movement, grinding rails, riding walls, jumping high, and more. This gives the player a fun freedom of approach on aspects like kill order, style, and speed. Combined with systems for combos and stage scores, an addicting loop of “I can do better than that…” is formed, which more often than not had me re-playing stages and chasing ever higher scores rather than taking on new levels.
Stage challenges vary from easy to… not so easy.
The difficulty in Rollerdrome is high, and at times, almost brutal. The difficulty ramps up after each stage, and the difference between score grades often felt mind-boggling to me. Extra challenges, which unlock new levels, can also be arduous at times but luckily they count as complete even if you lose. Basic challenges like collecting tokens from the stage are easy, but trick and time challenges require real mastery of systems and tons of repetition. Rollerdrome is not impossibly difficult, but it challenges you in many areas, often at once. However, if you’re looking for a more laid-back experience, the game offers modifiers like invincibility and infinite bullet time to let you enjoy yourself, too.
The fun movement does have its’ unfortunate quirks too, such as unexpected bouncing and changes in momentum here and there. Displaying un-skateable areas could also be better, as accidentally touching out-of-stage areas leads to a lost combo, and bumping into an unrideable wall usually ends with me comically falling to my death. At least the game doesn’t allow tricks to ‘fail’: you always land back on your feet no matter how you hit the ground. In an arena filled with land mines, sniper fire, missiles, and a running combo timer, it’s a real blessing.
Different tools for different problems.
Despite its’ tough-as-nails difficulty and awkward movement at times, Rollerdrome keeps pulling me back in to give my best performance for the cheering crowd. I absolutely adore its’ retro-future aesthetic and uniquely designed combat, but it also imposes plenty of challenge, which might not be for everyone. If regular skateboarding games just don’t do it for you anymore, or even if you’re looking for fresh air in the third-person shooter genre, I recommend giving Rollerdrome a chance. Learning to like a skating game was not in my 2023 bingo card, so it might surprise someone else too!
Basic information:
Publisher: Private Division
Developer: Roll7
Platforms: Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Release Date: August 16th, 2022 (Win, PS4, PS5), November 28th, 2023 (Xbox)
Genres: Action, sport, shooter
PEGI: 16
Photos:
Screenshots from Rollerdrome (Roll7, 2022), taken by the author.
Promotional featured image from Rollerdrome (Roll7, 2022). https://www.roll7.co.uk/games/rollerdrome
Mikko likes long walks on beaches of Shadow Moses Island, bonfire-lit dinners in Lordran, and travelling around Johto region, hoping one day to catch ‘em all. Besides game design, he also nerds out about music, cooking, and random historical anecdotes.
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