Rollerdrome - Is (probably) My Game Of The Year
I don't really know where to start with this one. I absolutely love this game roller drum that I've been playing. It's out today, and if you just give me a couple minutes, let me explain why I think you should play it specifically if you're a certain type of player. They did it and we've seen concepts a little bit like this, but in this package, in this presentation, and this gameplay style, it really worked for me and in the last week I've been kind of reviewing this game.
I haven't stopped thinking about it because it scratches this perfect, unique article game itch that I've been longing for a long time, and this is another game in a pile of games this year where if you say that there are no good article games anymore or you're just bored of current games, try a game like this one.
If you dig third person old school style shooters like Max Payne (which I absolutely love too), Tony Hawk, or even Aggressive Inline, you remember that game? Cause Roller Drum straight up is like the best not-full-price game I've played in a long time. I highly recommend it. I think it's money well spent.
Like I'm saying, it's my dream. I sound like I'm really shilling for this one because I really enjoy it. So here's the deal, man. The way this game is designed is really incredible because you see me playing, you see? I hate to keep bringing up Tony Hawk, but just for comparison's sake, this is kind of like a level-based style game where you progress.
You're trying not to die, and you're trying to defeat all the enemies, but you're also worrying about all this other stuff. You're doing jumps to collect icons. When you're doing these special tricks, you're checking off all these things and progressing through these levels, and that's where the addiction sets in because the gameplay loop is so satisfying and the game gives you just enough to keep kind of playing for a long time.
It's worth noting too that this was developed by Roll Seven. This is the team behind the Ali Olie games, most specifically, more recently. Ali World, so they understand skateboarding and, although this is a rollerblade based game, they got it down pretty well while it's not quite as tight as you know, and again I'm nitpicking because I play so much Tony Hawk.
I play so many games like this—these combo-based grinding and jumping things. It's not that tight, but it makes up for it with the rest of its gameplay concept. So the actual stuff itself, the riding, the jumping, the tricks, the grinding, it's not super fast, you really can only go one speed with it, but it still manages to be immensely satisfying.
You actually can't fall. You can't get out by doing tricks. You can't hold the grab button too long, and you hit the ground with a splat, and your character falls. There's kind of like an auto recovery, so you're always landing, you're always fine, you're always smooth, and while at first I was not into that, then I was like , that's half the challenge.
Believe it or not, that's not at all, so what it lets you do is focus on being cool by getting these tricks and also on the main focus of defeating your enemies. It also does kind of auto aim your character, so your shots will connect as long as you're sort of aiming near that character, your shots will connect, which again makes it sound easy, but being able to auto land tricks and having a generous auto aim does not automatically make it an easy game.
Aside from that, though, there are a bunch of different accessibility and control options. At least Roller Drum is fairly challenging, and I think that's a lot of the hook here. You know, as someone who does enjoy these types of games or games surrounding this genre, this type of thing makes me think about it a different way and really challenge myself because of the main loop.
So when you're taking out enemies, in this world, you have a very small ammo pool. You're eventually going to be able to swap between four different weapons, right? There's another guy in the air. You pull one more spin grab move, and then while you're still in the air, you get that ammo back and you shoot them again.
Do you see what I mean? It's deceptively simple, like you might think it's boring at first because there's not a lot in the environment. You can shoot explosive barrels, but that's about it. There's nothing like item pickups that feel like slow time or freezing enemies. There's not a lot going on, but it all works because it taps into like that adrenaline rush, lizard brain thing you have where you're flying around through maps.
Back and forth back and forth grinding and you're in your head, you're like, okay. I'm gonna do this and then I'm gonna switch to this gun and do that and then I'm gonna hit that guy, and it really gets your heart racing, like it really gets your heart pounding, and I love that. I value that highly.
It's just good. For lack of a better word, it's just good, man. It's all got such a simple presentation. Essentially, it's like, you know, a little bit in the future, not too far in the future, controlled by kind of like a corporate police force and corporations, entities, and there's this blood sport that players compete in.
And the game gives you little morsels of world building. In between levels, you have the ability to kind of wander around the locker room and read up on things. It's super subtle, but with the visuals themselves, with this cool kind of cell shaded design, kind of like, weird color palette design, it kind of reminds me of Anti-Chamber.
Remember that indie game from years back? A lot of other games have done this style, but I like the way it's done here where the character art and the levels themselves are so simple and very much like a strongly directed art style. With some cool music, some cool synth music, it really works for me.
There's only one playable character, this woman, Cara Hassan, and you don't really know much about her. She doesn't talk. It's all about just shooting and grinding and jumping, so interestingly enough, it is a single-player game. It's very much focused on just playing and progressing through these levels, but there's not really too much of a story.
The gameplay is the focus here, and they knew what they were doing. This game is so much fun to play that it's the main focus and I've been digging it now. It is interesting. It does need a couple of things. There are a couple of things that bum me out. Number one, a little bit more, is map variation, so there are plenty of maps.
I'm satisfied with the number of maps, but they only kind of swap between a couple of different styles, like the desert maps, the snowy type maps, and the mall type maps. There's like two or so of each. I would have hoped for each one to be completely uniquely different, but that's a minor gripe.
