OlliOlli World: Void Riders Review – Extra Dimensions

OlliOlli World is a pleasant skateboarding sport, a superb end result of what developer Roll7 established throughout two earlier video games of its super-fast, trick-infused side-scrolling platforming collection. With its first DLC growth, Void Riders, Roll7 offers what is usually extra of the same–more cleverly constructed tracks, extra high-level challenges, and extra goofy characters. Void Riders affords a number of new parts to the general components, nevertheless it does not break the OlliOlli World mildew. While it could have been thrilling to see how Roll7 might push its personal envelope, Void Riders offers extra OlliOlli World to play by and grasp, and that is nice, too.The base OlliOlli World has gamers touring the world of Radlandia, skating by cities, forests, industrial websites, and theme parks, hoping to achieve a state of skateboard zen that can enable them to develop into a “skate wizard.” Void Riders is one thing of a facet story to that endeavor, dropped into the center of the sport and having little to do with the primary characters. It builds on the desert portion of the sport, Burntrock, the place aliens appear to be hanging out within the background, abducting cows and teasing conspiracy theorists. In Void Riders, you meet the aliens and assist them abduct the cows, together with a few different cryptids hiding out in Radlandia’s biomes.As with the total sport, Void Riders’ story is not too dense a story, nevertheless it does present a cute bookend to your skating ranges as you speak to an alien trio working for a spooky purple boss blob named Nebulord. You observe these aliens around the globe, listening to them give their interpretations about humanity–all of that are gleaned from listening to podcasts from conspiracy theorist Mike, one in every of OlliOlli World’s essential characters–and impressing them as you skate totally different programs. The DLC takes you thru new areas of three of OlliOlli World’s biomes because the aliens attempt to seize native Earth life to take again to area with them, and you ultimately accompany them to “the Void” to point out off your abilities to Nebulord as you skate some extraterrestrial places.In all, the growth affords 18 new programs to play by, which is comparable in measurement to one of many 5 biomes within the base sport. Though many of the programs happen in these Radlandia biomes, reasonably than the brand new space-based location of The Void, all of them discover new places that supply totally different approaches to ranges. Courses set within the forests of Cloverbrook, for example, happen on a snowy mountaintop with frozen lakes to leap over, whereas a few of Burntrock’s ranges wind by ghost cities and deserted Old West mines. The DLC additionally offers a bunch of recent beauty gadgets to earn as you play by its ranges, supplying you with some space-themed gear with which to deck out your skater.Gallery Void Riders provides a brand new component to those programs: the alien tractor beam. Scattered across the DLC’s ranges are alien ships that fireside a beam downward, sucking objects up into the air. Practically, which means gadgets like grind rails or platforms may be levitated within the air and can usually rise into focus simply as you are nearing them, which supplies the sense of tracks altering beneath you simply as you skate by them. It additionally means it’s a must to pay shut consideration to timing jumps and methods to ensure you get the correct quantity of top or hit an ideal touchdown. Not figuring out precisely what you are going to hit and when provides a distinct type of problem to OlliOlli World’s ranges, though it isn’t a drastic change, since previous programs often had collapsing terrain or altering parts that compelled you to make changes on the fly.You also can work together with some tractor beams, utilizing them to briefly levitate your skater to realize further top on jumps or clear gaps you would not in any other case be capable of cross. You do this by executing a “grab” trick whereas touring by the beam, which is well executed by simply pushing any path on the best thumbstick when enjoying on a controller. The seize component means you might have management over how the tractor beams have an effect on you, and in some circumstances, you will wish to fall by a beam reasonably than get zapped upward by it as a way to discover a hidden monitor or keep away from a hazard. The tractor beams add a enjoyable wrinkle to the ever-present jumps all through the sport, forcing you to suppose a bit extra vertically than you needed to in the remainder of OlliOlli World.The one downside of the tractor beams, no less than in my expertise, is that they will mess together with your stream as you rocket by a Void Riders degree. Grabs are one of many parts in OlliOlli World that allow you to maximize your factors, however in contrast to the opposite methods within the sport, they really include a significant downside. Grab strikes are added to different soar tricks–essentially, you go off a ramp and hit a soar, then activate your seize when you’re within the air. Execute a seize too early, although, and it kills your soar momentum, which may hold you from hitting the total top of a soar and thus make you fall a bit quick when attempting to clear gaps.The factor about tractor beams is that you could use grabs to activate them, so seeing one coming as you barrel by a course has the unintended psychological impact of inflicting you to activate a seize too early in anticipation of needing the in-air enhance. A complete bunch of ranges which are ostensibly all about grabs, due to this fact, created plenty of moments after I would blow a soar by by chance killing my momentum whereas attempting to activate a finicky tractor beam. Rather than serving to get right into a stream state as I navigated ranges, I needed to remind myself when robust tractor beam jumps had been developing in order that I might make sure to activate grabs very intentionally and keep away from slamming right into a mountainside or an alien tree.OlliOlli World is a sport that encourages you to run a degree again and again (and over) to get an ideal run, so restarts are fast and simple. But for the reason that DLC tracks make liberal use of this one component, it might typically really feel a bit antithetical to the remainder of the sport. Of course, mastering totally different elements of OlliOlli ranges is a part of the problem, however tractor beams felt like they often introduced a studying curve that was just a bit out of step with the remainder of the sport’s considerably extra forgiving, zen-like really feel.That stated, the OlliOlli video games are recognized to be troublesome, and whereas OlliOlli World is general extra approachable than its predecessors, it could nonetheless be robust as nails–and so can Void Riders, in a rewarding, push-yourself-to-get-better method. The DLC provides a bunch of recent challenges and tracks, and barring a number of annoying tractor beam moments, all these issues are a blast to play by.OlliOlli World is the type of sport that will get into your head and causes you to push your self for only one extra run or to hunt a barely greater rating, and Void Riders proceed to scratch that very same simple itch. Roll7’s skating sport is filled with intelligent, expertly constructed programs and enjoyable, goofy characters, and Void Riders does not skimp on both. It won’t deliver an enormous quantity of recent issues to the sport, however simply having extra nice tracks to skate and discover is a worthy addition in its personal proper.