OlliOlli is a 2D skateboarding game developed by Indie Game Developer, Roll 7 released exclusively for PlayStation Vita. The easiest way to describe the game is Tony Hawk meets BitTrip Runner and done extremely well. The menu is simple clean and very easy to navigate.
The object of the game is to rack up as many points as you can by jumping gaps, grinding rails, and preforming tricks to create a chain bonus. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. This is where the “endless runner” portion of the game comes in. If you don’t time your landing right, you will trip and fall, ending your run and returning to the beginning of the level. The better the trick, the more points you receive. If you do not land the trick perfectly, your score will decrease significantly.
Career Mode has five levels. Urban, Junkyard, Port, Base, and Neon City – each contains unique environments and obstacles. Within those levels are five stages and each stage has 5 other objectives. If you make it to the end of the stage, it unlocks the next stage. If you complete all of the objectives, you unlock the “Pro” difficulty of the individual stage.
Spots Mode is similar to Career Mode except you only have one chance to achieve the combo chain. At the end of the level you can compare your score with the world, and see who has the all-time best score. Unfortunately, that is the only leaderboard available right now. I think Roll 7 should create a personal, and friend’s leaderboard in addition to the world leaderboard.
The final mode is Red Mode, but at the time of writing this, I have yet to unlock this mode mainly due to the game crashing on a particular stage in one of the later levels. I reached out to Roll 7 via Twitter and they assured me they are working on a patch.
My favorite part of the game is The Daily Grind. This is a daily challenge in which the stage is the same for everyone and you can complete as many practice runs and you want. Only the official run of the day score will count towards the world ranking. Again, you cannot see what your friends scored on their daily grind.
The OlliOlli soundtrack has been added to my list of all-time favorite videogame soundtracks. It contains mostly instrumental with a few different genres of electro that really helps you get in the “zone” of the game. The character animations are spot of with detail and it provide a lot of screen space to watch the character complete the tricks.
Would I recommend OlliOlli? Absolutely. Despite the lack of a personal and friends leaderboard and the crashes I encountered, It is a fun, yet sometimes frustrating game that keeps you coming back for more.