Not a lot of tears were shed when the Tony Hawk series kicked the bucket. Its games released to great acclaim and to their credit stayed strong for a long time before a harsh and sharp decline. By the time anybody had thought to release a crappy plastic board to jump on in your living room the damage had already been done. I’d go so far as to wager a bet that most people couldn’t even name the last game in the series. Don’t cheat, imagine it in your head: the last non-re-release Tony Hawk game. I’ll tell you at the end of the review if you got it right.
I can empathize. Tony Hawk games lost sight of what made them so fun, but they did so in response to criticism that the series wasn’t evolving or going anywhere. How do you evolve while keeping things feeling like they used to? Well no one knows for sure. What we do know is that Tony Hawk: Ride (still not the last game in the series) is not the answer. OlliOlli however, just might be.
OlliOlli is a beautifully put together 2D skateboarding platformer exclusive to the Playstation Vita. Like any good skateboarding game, you’re here to get those sweet high scores.
The game’s control scheme is incredibly simple, only utilizing the analog stick and two buttons. Holding down the left analog stick will prep your skater for a jump/trick pairing that will differ depending on what direction you were holding. Holding forward and releasing does a simple kickflip, rotate the stick like in a fighting game and you’ll do a dramatically more impressive trick. The stick can also be used to grind rails. As you approach a rail you simply hold the stick down to latch onto it and grind. This is largely how combos are built in the game, grinding from rail to rail while pulling off different tricks in between.
But what goes up must come down and that will be of particular concern to players here. As your skater approaches solid ground you must press the X button to ensure that they have a smooth landing. Timing is critical here, press the button too early and you’ll kill the points in your combo, press the button too late and there’s a strong chance you’ll slip and fall off your board like an idiot. It sounds simple enough but this combo of jumping and landing takes a pretty healthy dose of time to wrap your head around.
Pressing the right trigger will spin your character in the air, making his tricks even more impressive, but the game doesn’t even show you that during its initial tutorial. It knows that landing is going to be trouble enough.
There’s plenty to do in OlliOlli. The game offers both a “Career” and “Spot” mode. Career levels take a couple notes from Tony Hawk, at the start of each level you’ll be presented with a set of 5 objectives, these range from “don’t do any kickflips” to “grind on the blades of all the helicopters in the level”. Finish all 5 objectives and you unlock a “Pro” version of that respective level. Pro versions range from slight modifications to complete remakes and they are all tough as nails. If you’re a true master you can knock out all the objectives on each of the pro levels to unlock the legendary “Rad Mode”. I won’t lie, I didn’t unlock Rad Mode, and I’ve had a very hard time finding anyone else online who has in order to see footage of it, but hey, it sounds pretty rad.
Level objectives start out entertaining enough, but by the end of the game’s initial 50 levels they’ve almost completely run out of steam. I’d like to see future OlliOlli titles include a few more level set-pieces, or find some way to spice up “grind this item in the level” a little bit more.
Spot mode’s levels are designed to deliberately keep you on a single steady flow of grinds. Once you land in Spot mode your run is over and your score gets sent out for all the internet to laugh at. Adding up all the Amateur and Pro maps in both modes gives you about 100 levels to play through, which should be more than enough to keep you busy.
But that’s not all, OlliOlli also provides a mode known as the “Daily Grind”. This mode is treated similarly to Spot mode except it of course changes daily and you only get one run on it to pull off the perfect trick. It’s a neat little diversion that extends the life of the game just a bit more.
OlliOlli benefits greatly from its home on the Vita. The analog stick feels incredibly essential to how the game plays and this would just feel plain wrong on something like the 3DS’ circle pad. The game is also super portable, a typical run lasts less than a minute so it’s really easy to break this out at any time and sneak in a couple rounds.
There are a number of different ways to fail in OlliOlli, rolling off the pavement into deep snow, or just completely botching a landing all bring about the same result: you get to keep your score up until that point, but you’re going to start the entire level over. Restarting a level is simple enough, there’s a giant yellow restart symbol sitting in the top left corner of the game just waiting for you to admit your failures and press it. Restarting is a quick and simple affair, there’s no waiting for the level to re-load, you’re just shown your objectives again and dropped right back at the beginning.
Much like real skateboarding, you’re going to bail, a lot. And much like real skateboarding that can be frustrating. There will times where you’ll sail down an entire level, pulling off every trick, connecting every grind, just to eat it on a well placed piece of scenery right before the level ends. And then? You’ll restart and eat it on the first jump five times in a row. OlliOlli is nothing if not a fickle mistress.
Part of this is going to be your fault and part of this is going to be the game being a dick. Most of the time the game’s difficulty feels fair and tied to twitch reflexes but there are a few levels that feel less about reaction time and more about just learning the pattern in the level until you’re able to beat it. Those are usually the places where I got stuck the longest and arguably where I had the least fun.
OlliOlli isn’t going to be right for everyone. The game requires a lot of patience and even after I was unlocking pro levels I could still get my ass kicked on earlier ones. There is an awful lot to like in the package though. Fans of games like Super Meat Boy and VVVVVV are going to feel right at home here, and hey, even if you’re not one of those people I still think it’s probably worth giving it a try.
By the way, that last nail in the Tony Hawk coffin? Tony Hawk: Shred, I’m sure you remember that one.
