In 1999, the world was graced with the first Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game. A game that no one expected would be a huge success and gain the attention of many players. It was so successful that it won several sequels, but the last ones ended up falling into oblivion due to the drop in quality. But let’s focus on the height of this game, which was so successful that it also leveraged games from other studios.

Since this genre lost its strength, we can consider that there is a lack of really good games that capture the essence of entering an arena, doing various maneuvers and completing challenges.

And then Rollerdrome comes into play…

Let the (bloody) games begin!

Well, I first mentioned in the title that Rollerdrome is a shooter. And it really is one, with a third-person camera in which you simultaneously control the character equipped only with her red jumpsuit, a helmet and a pair of skates.

In the game you control Kara Hassan, who has just entered the games and needs to climb the rankings to reach the grand final and become victorious. The game’s story is very succinct and all the information about what is happening is there optionally. You can ignore everything and just get into the action, but then the player will be missing out on a small part of the fun of seeing the story progress. It may even be a point where the streamer can try to interpret with his audience what is happening between the championships.

The movement gameplay can be compared a lot to sports games, specifically skateboarding. Rollerdrome has closed arenas with several courses for the player to perform tricks and show off their skills. It doesn’t have the depth of games that focus on this gameplay, but you can do a lot of cool things. But if this part doesn’t have the depth of known games in the genre, the shooter part adds another layer.

In this shooter “part”, the player has a varied arsenal and the possibility of dodging enemy attacks. It even has a “bullet-time” to help the player land some shots in the most complicated maneuvers. Not to mention that there are also boss battles that are well done and their design is very good.

In Rollerdrome, challenging objectives are your biggest enemies!

The objective of the game, initially, is for the player to defeat all enemies. But that’s just not enough to qualify for the next stages of the blood sport. There are several small objectives to complete to reach what is necessary to classify our heroine. It is not necessary to do everything in each phase to advance, but for those who like to complete everything, there are very challenging objectives.

Visually, the game is very beautiful where the art style tries to simulate a comic book look with a very well-crafted cellshading style. And there are really cool transitions between the story and the arena action. It’s practically flawless. And of course, you can’t leave out the sound part, which has very good songs that do an excellent job of leaving the player and the audience immersed in the fun. Rollerdrome is an excellent game to broadcast on livestreams. Beautiful graphics, excellent soundtrack and very fun gameplay with very varied boss fights.

I didn’t encounter any serious technical problems in the game, despite the fact that we could have had more language options and the confusing on-screen button prompts. I played the PC version through Game Pass and the game showed me the keyboard prompt in the dialogues, the Xbox buttons in the objectives and the Playstation buttons in the menus. This may confuse more casual players a little, but it shouldn’t be a problem that prevents you from progressing in the game.

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Katsutoshi