With titles like OlliOlli World, Laser League, and NOT A HERO, Roll7 have shown time and again their commitment to core gameplay loops that you can pick up and play with ease, but that is still exceptionally fun and rewarding to try to master.
Their latest attempt, Rollerdrome, promises a unique merging of two existing genres - blending together combo chaser games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Steep with the varied world of third-person shooters.
Set in an alternate near-future amid a dark conspiracy surrounding the world's most popular sport, Rollerdrome sees you play as newcomer Kara Hassan, as she fights to survive and outshine her closest rival, Casper Ix.
She does this as the new organisers of the sport strive to make it more popular, engaging, and ultimately more deadly than ever before, as she takes on the so-called "House Players" in front of a cheering crowd and TV cameras.
The concept of the game is relatively simple - don a pair of rollerskates, equip yourself with guns, or a grenade launcher, and jump into the Rollerdrome - an arena where your only objective is to eliminate all of the House Players before they eliminate you. Each level is easily replayable and carries challenges that can be done while completing it.
While in the arena you can jump, grind, grab, flip, and perform wallrides, as well as shoot, dodge, and aim at the enemies in there with you. In order to do this, you have three resources to manage - health, ammo, and "reflex time".
Health acts as it would in any other third-person shooter - get hit by a stray bullet from a house player, and your health with go down. Collect health pickups from downed enemies, and it goes back up. If it reaches zero, you're eliminated, and you have to start the level over.
Ammo is a little different, in that you start with a full clip of ammo for each weapon, and you regain ammo by performing tricks. The better and more varied the tricks, the more ammo you receive.
Reflex Time is a mechanic that lets you slow down time - either to take aim at an enemy, line up your next route, or just get your bearings. It depletes as you use it, but recharges over time.
If you're thinking that it sounds hard to aim while you skate, then don't worry - Rollerdrome has you covered. When using basic weapons, you'll notice an auto-aim lock-on to the House Players, however more advanced weapons don't do this, instead rewarding harder targeting with greater damage.
The enemies are as varied as the weapons, with ordinary gun fodder, shielded enemies, and even snipers whose shots you need to dodge (with doing so effectively rewarding you with points and ammo).
Visually the game is striking, with awesome comic-book style visuals that really fit the theme of the game excellently. The soundtrack is great too, it's fully original and merges "iconic era sounds and tones with curring edge production to provide a heart thumping backdrop to the carnage".
The maps are also fun and exciting, with some being set indoors, while others are outdoors. There are levels with glass windows you can break through, halfpipes and quarter pipes to perform tricks on, as well as ramps and rails to ride along.
Each level has a set of ten challenges to complete alongside just clearing all of the House Players, with each "stage" (made up of four levels) requiring completion of a certain number of challenges to proceed. The challenges are straightforward and include things like collecting combo tokens, performing certain tricks in certain places, reaching a certain combo multiplier, or even beating a famous player's high score.
At the end of each level, you are graded based on the score you achieved, and shown which challenges you are yet to complete. The levels can then be replayed to allow you to attempt to try to improve your score or complete challenges that you might have missed.
Overall the gameplay looks fun, the idea is original, and it incorporates online leaderboards as well as an unlockable "Out for Blood" mode which really ramps up the difficulty. At its core, Rollerdrome threatens high-speed, adrenaline-pumping gameplay as you chase combos and high scores with fluid movement and tricking mechanics.
The story might not be overly complex, but I think this kind of concept lends itself quite well to a certain style of gameplay that you can jump in and out of casually, and the visuals and audio really add to this. It feels a lot like a game you might find in an arcade back in the 90s when rollerskates were all the rage.
Get your skates on - Rollerdrome rolls out for Playstation 4, Playstation 5, and Microsoft Windows on 16th August 2022.
