Test Rollerdrome: Tony Hawk in shooter mode!

One of my best video game memories is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. There's nothing like skating and trying to keep the highest combo counter, figuring out advanced tricks and never stopping to move, ticking off challenges while keeping an eye on the clock, and praying to beat the best score. It's a strange mix of Zen concentration that also makes your palms sweat and grinds your teeth. It's perfect.

I didn't think I would see that atmosphere again, but Roll7 has almost perfectly captured it with Rollerdrome, swapping realism and punk for cell shading and techno, while adding the only thing that was missing from Tony Hawk: murder. A lot, a lot of murders.

Rollerdrome features Kara Hassan, a newcomer in the blood sport that is popular in the future. Unfortunately, despite an interesting setup, Rollerdrome doesn't do much with its narration, hiding it in first-person sections between levels that have you walking around the environment interacting with notes on the wall and random objects. It's a boring way to tell a story and Rollerdrome doesn't do anything to remedy this.

Fortunately, the rest of Rollerdrome is so good that it doesn't really matter. In case you haven't noticed, the basic gameplay loop is extremely similar to that of THPS. Instead of performing tricks for the sole purpose of getting the best score, here you perform tricks in order to keep your weapons charged to kill everyone in sight with style.

Each trick you perform gives you ammunition and advanced tricks give you extra bullets, encouraging you to constantly stay in motion and perform crazier actions. This gives the impression that shooting is part of the movement and vice versa, rather than being two separate mechanisms in one.