Flippin' excellent
So good it will give you blisters.
It’s a sentence you might read in a glossy 1990s PlayStation magazine ad.
You get blisters from walking up hills, not video games.
In the forensically sucky cyberpresent of 2022, there is no place for such exaggeration.
OlliOlli Worldis so good it will give you blisters.
I know because I got one.
It’s an honest-to-god skin burp, a purpling speck on the tip of my thumb.
Flick the left thumbstick in any direction to do a trick.
Flick down for an ollie, flick left for a kickflip, and so on.
But the thumb gymnastics do not end there.
Quarter-circle and half-circle rotations will do more advanced tricks like varials or 360 flips.
Full circles and other patterns can result in even wilder moves, like Impossibles or 720 flips.
PreviousOlliOlligames put you in the unalterable shoes of a faceless, cap-wearing daredevil.
Here, the customisation options are explosive.
That’s mostly down to (mercifully infrequent) camera wackiness.
Worse for me are the occasional pipes and props that pass by in the foreground.
Those instances are scarce, though.
The skating itself has evolved in such a pleasing way it’s impossible to be mad.
You’re incentivised to learn with tutorials and challenges.
On these secret “gnarly” routes, things can be tougher.
There are clunking mechanical platforms that speed along under you.
Walls that rise or fly as you ride along them.
Rails that tremble and fall into glowing ooze as you spark across them.
There is the odd duff moment.
Obstructions that feel cheap, or plain infuriating.
None more disgusting than a passing factory belt of junk that crosses your path late in one industrial level.
Do you time your run to fit through the gap in junk?
Or do you simply have to gather enough speed to leap it?
It feels entirely down to luck whether a gap here is open or not.
Other levels are going to enrage players in a friendlier and goading way.
One early bonus level sees you racing against a bear.
Meanwhile, your path is strewn with formidable gaps, winding rails, and slowing hills.
If you best the bear, what’s to stop you high-horsing the humans?
There are daily challenges against other players and every level has its leaderboard of scores.
I make it sound more competitive and threatening than it is.
I’ve already explainedthe big differencesthat make it so.
But it will still make you slam more times than you’re free to count.
I’ve played enough OlliOlli to understand each level has its tough spots, its filters.
Gaps or jumps that require a precise speed or approach to clear.
These vacuums are make-or-break moments during a full-level giga-combo.
But on a larger scale, the whole game could be seen this way.
There are potential filters everywhere.
The bear level could be where people check out.
Or it could be in Sketchside, where the going gets tough.
Or in Los Vulgas, where huge leaps are required, one after the other.
Every subsequent level, from about the halfway point, is a place where you might give up.
But you won’t.
I’ve seen your grit, your tenacity, your rage.
You are a cockroach.
But like, a good cockroach, with a determined and happy cartoon face.
If there is a foolproof way to stop your proliferation, it remains unknown to science.
You will complete this game.
Everything feels impossible until you do it.
I think it succeeds.
Such is the intensity and frequency with which you will twiddle them sticks.
It is blisteringly good.
