Rollerdrome is the coolest shooter hope of the year

Lace up your roller skates and start shooting: This third-person shooter plays outstandingly well. If you ignore it, you”ll cut your own flesh.

Clicking on a game icon on my desktop after work is becoming increasingly rare in 2022. Household, fiancée, series, other hobbies: my time is limited and when I”ve spent eight hours a day professionally playing video games, a certain fatigue sets in.

So I was all the more surprised when I recently asked my better half for “just five more minutes” on the PC when she called for dinner. Because I had just started Rollerdrome and was really in the flow. Playing a third-person shooter that I”ve never played before, but have subconsciously always missed.

What is Rollerdrome about?

Rollerdrome is set in a near future that combines realistic (mega-corporations are the real power) and absurd elements (ordinary citizens try to rid themselves of their debts in a deadly skate arena). Protagonist Kara Hassan is the newcomer to the prestigious Rollerdrome League, where over the course of a campaign you fight your way through quarter-finals and semi-finals to the final duel for the crown of the eponymous bloodsport.

In arenas, which in the first six levels range from the usual indoor skate park to ski resorts and canyons to shopping malls, you are on roller skates to defeat all AI opponents. To do so, you”ll use an arsenal of guns ranging from the simple double-barreled pistols to the shotgun and grenade launcher.

In between levels, you can walk around the Rollerdrome League headquarters in first-person perspective and read a few lore texts. I didn”t notice any dialogue, there are only announcements from the stadium announcer and overall the story presentation is very unobtrusive; the sport is clearly in the foreground, even though (the Steam page for Rollerdrome) there is talk of a conspiracy to be uncovered in the course of the game.

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A good insight into the gameplay is provided by the video:

How does it play?

In Rollerdrome you are constantly on the move; the controls are designed for gamepads, but also work fine with mouse and keyboard. Heroine Kara is incredibly agile and would even elicit a respectful “Thunder!” from Tony Hawk: On roller skates, she not only performs tricks like jumps, grabs and spins, but can also bend in all directions to take aim at opponents. This is very reminiscent of Max Payne, especially since a slow-motion function is activated when you press the right mouse button.

The aiming is semi-automatic; Rollerdrome automatically directs projectiles into the target as long as you look halfway in the direction of the enemy. However, if you estimate the distance correctly, you can also take aim at enemies before the white box around the pixel opponents appears. So there is still more than enough room for cool moves that only experts can do. Literally, because typical skater tricks are an important element of Rollerdrome.

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These tricks not only boost your high score and, along with enemy kills, extend your combo meter, but also regenerate Kara”s ever-scarce ammunition. As a result, you hang one cool move on top of the other and are soon amazed at what a cool pike you are:

Kara drives sideways along walls, jumps off the halfpipe, lays across in the air and shoots down an enemy, then grinds along a railing. Two or three missiles later, you”ll be timing it just right to burn a load of buckshot into an armoured enemy, then you”ll crash through a windowpane, dodge a sniper”s attack in mid-air and take down several bad guys in slow motion, leaving life points behind as they die.

By the way, you don”t have to worry about landing after all that airtime; you can”t fall in Rollerdrome, Kara always stays on her feet. Only sometimes did I accidentally fall into an abyss while playing, and I had to pay a life point penalty for the subsequent respawn.

In these situations I would have liked even more control over Kara while she is in the air. Also, it sometimes happened that she was hit by snipers even though their laser beam aimed at the heroine was grey and no longer red. This felt unfair because I thought I was out of danger.

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Who is Rollerdrome for?

Did you love Hotline Miami? You love Max Payne? Then Rollerdrome is probably ideal for you as a combination of both, as long as you can live with the fact that the story doesn”t play as big a role here as it does in the two role models.

Rollerdrome promises long-term motivation especially if you like to complete the challenges set by the game and reach the highest rank in the internal rating of your shooter performance in each level. Online leaderboards also give you the opportunity to compete with other skate pros, and the completion time of an arena also plays a role here.

Rollerdrome - View screenshots of the skate shooter!

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Shooter pros can apparently use Rollerdrome to get the best out of themselves. At the same time, however, there are extensive options for adjusting the level of difficulty downwards. There”s even a god mode in case you kick the bucket too often – but if you activate it, you”re not allowed to participate in the leaderboards, of course.

What do we like so far? What is still unclear?

What do we like so far?

• The combination of roller skating and shooting feels great.
• Very high potential for awesome “Wow, did you see that?!” moments.
• Endless optional challenges and the leaderboards encourage you to improve.
• New mechanics, enemies and shooting irons are introduced consistently.
• Cool graphics style and casual soundtrack invite you to linger.

What is still unclear?

• Are the later levels as varied (we”ve only played about a third so far)?
• Do the developers fix the little annoyances when dodging?
• Is anything exciting still happening with the story?

Rollerdrome will be released on 16 August 2022, in addition to the PC version, there”s also a release on PS5 and PlayStation 4.