The Impact Factor

Tricked Out

Review

OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood, Roll7 (PSVITA)

Abstract: OlliOlli2:Welcome to Olliwood is one of the best skateboarding games I have played in years. After initial frustrations with its challenging control scheme, slow introduction of new gameplay elements, and a punishing insistence on perfect execution, OlliOlli2i clicked in a way I had never anticipated. Once it did, the game becomes a fast, fluid and compelling experience that had me chasing high scores and stringing together elaborate combo strings. Get over that same starting hump and you will be treated with a phenomenal gaming experience, too.

Should I grind switch on this railing or attempt a re-jump for a perfect landing? Do I have enough space to nose manual until the next ramp? Can I pull off the half circle back while crouching to pull off this jump trick? Over the course of my time with the exceptional OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood I asked myself questions like this on each new level I played. I didn’t start that way, though. If I’m being honest, OlliOlli2 wasn’t a game I was even sure I would ever get around to playing. I would like to think some cosmic force noticed how tremendous an error that would have been, and subconsciously got me to sit down with the game and give it some time. Whatever the case may be, I am so happy to review it here on The Impact Factor.

On the surface, OlliOlli2 is a game that seems tailor-made for me. I love 2D sidescrolling platformers. I love indie games with a real sense of purpose, a great aesthetic, and deceptively complex gameplay. Also, I was a big fan of the marquee skateboarding game from back in the day: namely, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (THPS). Aside from a couple platformer and RPG franchises, I cannot think of a series of games that absorbed more of my childhood than THPS. I immediately fell in love with the first release, but found my home in THPS2. I spent hours, days, and weeks going through each of the levels trying to pull off new tricks, accomplish new challenges, or get new high scores. The pulsing rock and ska-laced soundtrack fueled my adolescent fire. Each kickflip, ollie and benihana was perfectly calculated. And it was a blast.  The original couple of THPS games are phenomenal. I liked them so much I even gave real life skateboarding a try. As a point of full disclosure, I was and am terrible at anything skateboard related. Much more of a –blade man. I digress. The THPS franchise planted a seed of desire for new great skateboarding games for years following my time with them, but I was unfortunately met with disappointment after disappointment. I all but gave up on the genre. That was until OlliOlli came out.

The original OlliOlli caught my attention, as this new take on the skateboarding genre by the team at Roll7 was met with some pretty stellar fan and critical praise. It was my own fear of the new that stopped me from ever picking it up. Because of how much time I had invested into the 3D skateboarding genre, I was skeptical about how satisfying a 2D rendition would be. Shame on me. Back in march of this year, 2015, OlliOlli2 was announced as part of the complimentary games lineup for PS+. I knew at that point that this was my chance to finally give the OlliOlli games a chance. My PSVITA anniversary gift all but sealed the deal: I wanted to play a game on my new system, and a fun pick up and play title like OlliOlli2 fit the bill perfectly. Mild skepticism still in place, I downloaded OlliOlli2 and booted it up on my VITA. OlliOlli2 was great. Is great. Let me tell you all why.

A 2D skateboarding game? But how? OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood is how.

In OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood you play as, you guessed it, a skateboarder. Having not played the first, I couldn’t quite make out the full ‘plot’ of what transpired. From what you see in the game, though, your skater is being recording performing tricks for a movie production, which takes the player from location to location to complete increasingly difficult skateboarding obstacle courses. From a movie back lot, to a Central American temple, to a robot-filled futurescape, you get to skate in a lot of different places in OlliOlli2. What’s going on does not really matter so much though. In OlliOlli2 it’s all about pulling off the best tricks, and the best combos, you can. OlliOlli2 is an arcade styled 2D skateboarding platformer slash score chaser. It’s a hybrid of a lot of things. To progress through the game you move from level to level, hoping to reach the end of each with the highest score possible. Throughout each level are a variety of structures upon which you can perform your various skateboarding tricks: large ramps, railings, jumps, flat surfaces, etc. As you move left to right you are tasked with navigating, no, conquering, each of these obstacles with your tricks. Tricks can be chained together to achieve higher score multipliers and big score bonuses. That’s not all you can do in a level, too. Depending on the level there will be various items to collect, hidden paths, and alternate routes to see. OlliOlli2 encourages the player to perform a lot of different tasks in each of its levels. At minimum, the player must make it to the end of the level to move onto the next. Maximally, though, OlliOlli2 gives players a big list of feats it wants you to accomplish on each level. These range from getting a certain high score, to pulling off a specific sequence of tricks, to collecting all of a certain item, and more. This creates for a compelling gameplay loop, and instills the player with the ‘just one more run’ mentality. I can’t tell you how many times I played through each of the main levels trying to accomplish the different tasks. OlliOlli2 is always there to give you a lot to do and encourage you to do it well.

Find your way through the level, and rack up those high scores!

For any game, tight gameplay mechanics are essential. For a game like OlliOlli2 that melds 2D platforming with highly skill intensive, executionally rigorous trick comboing, perfect controls are paramount to a successful experience. OlliOlli2 has amazing gameplay, but one that is, unfortunately, not perfect. I’ll be honest with you all upfront: OlliOlli2 is a tough game to get ‘good’ at. I was nearly fed up with the game after my first hour or two of playing because it was such a frustrating experience. The controls are quite difficult to get a hold of at first, and feel wonky and awkward to execute. Additionally, after about an hour or so of playing, your hands begin to hurt pretty badly due to the strain of OlliOlli2’s physical demands. OlliOlli2’s unique control scheme can certainly pose as a major barrier for new players hoping to jump into the game. The reliance on perfect timing is also something that takes a substantial time investment to get into. Playing OlliOlli2 can feel clunky and slow when you don’t make GOOD or PERFECT landings, and falling on your face failed trick after failed trick can really wear on the player. It takes some devotion to really get OlliOlli2’s landing timings down, and it is an essential part of moving forward in the game. Further, OlliOlli2 teaches the player new elements of its gameplay rather slowly—some of which are crucial for getting high scores. For example, manuals and grind switches aren’t taught to the player until a decent way through the main levels. The former especially is essential for getting high scores. I would have liked more introduced to the player more quickly, though I certainly understand the hesitation. Drowning a new player with a massive information dump has its own concerns. Still, a little more and a little faster would have been a perfect balance.

 

Expect a lot of deaths, low scores, and frustrations when first jumping into OlliOlli2

And not to stay too negative for too long (because I really like OlliOlli2), but some of the tricks listed in the game’s “Tricktionary” are ludicrously hard to consistently perform. OlliOlli2 adapts analog stick movement from the fighting game genre for pulling off the various skateboarding feats. More specifically, I’m talking about moving the analog stick (or D-Pad) in quarter circles, half circles, 360’s, etc. As many of you know, I love fighting games. I’m also pretty competent at a couple of them, like Street Fighter and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. So I understand what the game is asking for when it wants a half circle back to pull off a trick. Unfortunately, I would say that at least 50% of the time I was unable to pull off the exact trick I wanted to, unless it required only the most basic of stick movements. Even after all the hours I have sunk into OlliOlli2 I’m still not sure what the exact issue is. Perhaps I’m worse at stick movements in OlliOlli2 than I am in fighting games. Perhaps there are different thresholds for the stick movement in OlliOlli2 than fighting games (i.e. I stop short of a half circle because I know it would get registered in Street Fighter but that is not the case here). Perhaps I just needed to hit the lab and practice more. Either way, it was something frustrating that I could not seem to address during my time with the game.

Once the player is exposed to everything you can do, and spend the requisite couple of hours getting a grasp on the control scheme, OlliOlli2 clicks. You’ll have an epiphany. Everything you were just frustrated with is no more. The controls, the systems, just work. Pulling off tricks become fast and fluid. Your level scores shoot up from a couple thousand to hundreds of thousands, even crossing the million mark. You go from struggling to get through a level to successfully stringing a series of tricks together to combo throughout an entire level. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Well Alex, you’re just really good at video games, this won’t happen for me.” First, thank you! I am pretty great! And second, I am confident that this is not the case. If you put in the time, you will get good at OlliOlli2. I promise. Your new skill set in hand, you are now able to tackle the challenges OlliOlli2 throws at you. Performing the tricks feels great. The player gets immense satisfaction with each perfect landing, or expertly timed revert into grind into grind switch. Once you reach this point in your time with the game, OlliOlli2 rewards you with essentially non-stop gratification. The feeling of mastering difficult challenges is one of the best in video games, and OlliOlli2 delivers it so well. Getting a hold of the controls also opens up the game to a new headspace. Each new level is a puzzle: What’s the best route? How do I get past this difficult section? How can I maximize my score? During this experimentation there will be frustrations. You will need to start a level over several (read: many) times before you can master it. The team at Roll7 knew this would be an issue and smartly implemented a nearly instantaneously retry system into the game. If you die or fail a trick, you can be doing another level run within a second or two. All of these intelligent design decisions synthesize perfectly with the amount of great challenges the game offers you, and creates a thoroughly enjoyable play experience.

It might take you a while, but you'll get to the point where several hundred
thousand point combos come pretty regularly

My success with OlliOlli2’s gameplay and controls surprised me. But perhaps even more surprising was how much I was enthralled by the look and feel of the game. OlliOlli2 grabbed me in a way that I had not anticipated. The real standout is the soundtrack, which is filled with great tunes that perfectly fit the skateboard combo-fest. The music, skateboarding sounds and fluid cartoonish visuals blend together seamlessly to create a warm, welcoming place. A place where you can get lost for hours trying to increase your trick score, beat the expert levels, or post a high score on the Daily Grind.

With lots of levels and the Daily Grind, there's always more to do in OlliOlli2

OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood is a game I plan to always have on my VITA. It was fun when I got deep into it, trying to master the levels and get leaderboard-worthy scores. And OlliOlli2 has remained fun when I pick up and play for 10 or 15 minutes to complete a Daily Grind or random level. OlliOlli2 perfectly balances fun and skill, frustration and sense of accomplishment. For a devoted score chaser I cannot think of a better game. For the rest of us, OlliOlli2 is a great experience that, a few large initial frustrations aside, will probably surprise you. Check it out.

OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood

4/5