Must know
What’s it? Skateboarding as a side-scrolling platformer.
Count on to pay £25/$30
Launch date February 8
Developer Roll7
Writer Personal Division
Reviewed on RTX 2070, 16GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Multiplayer? On-line leaderboards
Hyperlink Official site
OlliOlli World is not like different skaters. It isn’t shredding strains down some asphalt concourse, pissing off safety guards and scaring passing consumers because it slams a haphazard 50-50 into the curb. Roll7’s collection of side-scrolling skaters has as a substitute travelled to the far-off shores of Radlandia, a skater’s paradise the place the rails are at all times polished, the ramps freed from unfastened nails, and aspiring shredders compete for the possibility to turn out to be the subsequent Skate Wizard.
OlliOlli World is weirder and wilder than those that Olli’d earlier than it—and it is all the higher for it.
The third recreation within the collection follows the template laid out by OlliOlli 1 and a pair of. You are tasked with skating a line down a side-scrolling course, utilizing A to push and the left stick with launch into kickflips and the like (it is price noting a controller is necessary, and controls sadly can’t be rebound). As you go on you construct up your bag of tips, chaining combos with manuals, grinds, wallrides as you look to not solely end levels, however end them in fashion—racking up excessive scores and searching down secondary goals.
Written like that, World would not sound too completely different from its forebears. However from the second you hearth up the sport, it is clear World is shredding a line all of its personal.
Good ‘n’ steezy
OlliOlli World loves skateboarding—not simply the tips and flips, however the tradition, the style and the music, which in 2022 means extra chillhop beats than thrash punk and ska. But it surely would not really feel completely beholden to the thought of what skateboarding tradition must seem like. Whereas OlliOlli 1 and a pair of sported a recognisable set of parks and sidewalks to shred, World makes use of these touchstones to create a splendidly surreal Journey Time-esque skatopia.
It is a much-needed tonal refresh for the collection, and one which performs completely right into a new-found third dimension. Skate strains weave round cliffs, deserted casinos, sludge factories and large ice cream cones. Switching from flat backdrops to a world with actual depth would not simply make World a prettier recreation—it provides Roll7’s designers far more area to problem your skate abilities.
The place earlier than programs might solely go from left to proper, OlliOlli World’s levels now shift backwards and forwards, looping round on themselves with quarter pipe gaps and destructible flooring that open new routes a second time spherical.
This new freedom is finest explored in robust new Gnarly Routes. Take the appropriate rail, or change lanes on the proper time, and you will be taken down a a lot more durable (and extra rewarding) path, demanding extra exact jumps and tips at a sooner tempo. You will wish to discover each nook and cranny, too. Apart from merely beating the extent and besting the locals’ scores, there’s extra style to be unlocked by scouring the map to finish particular goals, and hidden NPCs that unlock solely new levels.
Straightforward Rolling
Forward of enjoying World, I returned to the unique OlliOlli and was blindsided by how instantly punishing it felt, absolutely the precision it demanded from the get go. OlliOlli World, in the meantime, has taken nice care to make its explicit fashion of skating really feel extra laid-back and approachable—a minimum of for the primary few levels.
Extra punishing parts, like needing to slam ‘A’ completely on touchdown else undergo a large velocity penalty, have been eliminated in favour of providing increased rating bonuses. However ranges additionally really feel extra laid-back at first, and new parts are doled out so regularly that you’re going to nonetheless be getting tutorials properly into the third or fourth area out of the sport’s 5 whole.
At occasions it will possibly really feel like World is pulling its punches, however that is solely as a result of when it lastly hits out, its challenges are brutal, multi-layered fares that demand you completely string precision grinds, wallrides, transfers and tips at a breakneck tempo, preserving a relentless eye on the observe as you loop round and navigate strains that break aside on themselves. I went from effortlessly perfecting programs to struggling to even survive them. Checkpoints will allow you to battle levels one chunk at a time, however there’s at all times that implicit strain to nail that one good run.
Every map has its personal leaderboards, and revisiting a stage will assign you a rival to face off towards. However that is numerous levels to battle over—and whereas I am positive there will be of us battling for these spots, Gnarvana is the place most challenge-seekers will get their repair.
Unlocked after beating the primary area, Gnarvana is a mystical area that permits you to generate and share tracks by selecting their problem, size, and biome (or by coming into a ‘postcode’ seed). Being cobbled collectively from proc-gen components they miss the bespoke attraction of the primary levels, however it’s additionally the place World’s Every day Challenges exist—spewing out a brand new observe each day to struggle over.
It instantly tickles the a part of my mind that religiously took on Nuclear Throne dailies for a yr. In letting you view replays from different contenders, it is also lo-key an excellent studying instrument for determining how one can maximize your routes (although I discovered replays might typically be a bit of off-sync).
Stick the touchdown
Roll7 might’ve performed it protected for a 3rd OlliOlli. OlliOlli 2 was, in spite of everything, a reasonably protected sequel that refined on and tightened up the format laid down by a 2014 debut Phil adored, so it is simple to think about a world the place a 3rd iterated to perfection a la Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater 3.
However in shedding the grounded fashion of its predecessors, OlliOlli World provides the collection a much-needed sense of identification. OlliOlli is not simply 2D Skate now—it is a splendidly surreal skateboarding paradise, a vibrant rhythmic platformer performed out on grind rails and halfpipes.
A tough pivot to stoner skater Pendleton Ward aesthetics and a gentler studying curve may threat pushing aside collection die-hards, however skateboarding games are in the midst of a renaissance that features kickflipping budgies, lo-fi halfpipe toys and crystalline skate classes within the underworld beneath New York. OlliOlli World’s radical reinvention would not simply assist it sustain with this pack of recent skaters—it is simply what the collection wanted to spawn some of the trendy, satisfying skaters round.
