OlliOlli from Roll7 brings the exciting world of skateboard tricks to the PC. Originally released on the Vita handheld console, the game has been released across a number of platforms. The side scrolling skateboard game relies on few controls and the object of the game is to traverse the screen whilst performing tricks, without falling on your face.

There is a lot of depth to the game; it offers over one hundred and twenty tricks to perform across five challenging stages and four games modes, including Career, Spots, Daily Grind and RAD. Fusing an infinite runner game with the requirement to perform specific and sometimes restrictive button presses to perform tricks makes the game a challenge. The game also contains elements of a platformer as there are levels which you can traverse. I’m sure you’ve seen young people trying to skate down a hand rail, usually falling on their face, well you too can spent time failing to look cool.

The controls are both its strength and weakness as a game, it feels a little too exacting for a casual half an hours play, but does reward with practice. I’m not sure whether it was my unfamiliarity with the controls, but it took an enormous amount of time even to get past the tutorials. The controls seemed somehow counter intuitive to the way I normally play.

I’m not sure why one would spend so much time creating a game with such challenge only to make the stylistic choice of making it look like an old eight bit offering. Graphically the game is far from attractive and will probably make you wonder why you spent so much money on a gaming PC. I can see that there is a kind of retro feel to the graphics, but then if I wanted retro I would go and play an old game.

So, the game is a challenge to get to grips with, but even if you do succeed the game continues to ramp up the challenge. In the end it comes over as some sort of masochistic challenge, but if you do make it across the screen you're likely to find yourself punching the air exclaiming “yes in your face OlliOlli” and then settling down for another couple of hours of gaming humiliation.

This is not the sort of game which will find itself straddling the gaming community. I can see that people are either going to love its idiosyncrasies, the less than intuitive controls and the challenge it offers, or you’re going to throw your computer against the wall in frustration.

6

Charles Packer