OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood, Gleaming the platform…

To call OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood a skateboarding game is a little like calling the original Contra a war simulation; it’s a bit of a stretch, really. Sure, the imagery and ideas are all about skateboarding, and the tricks you do are all the things you would do on a skateboard. But putting this game in the same category as the height of the Tony Hawk games, or even EA’s short-lived Skate franchise, is a little generous. OlliOlli 2 is about skateboarding, sure, but it’s more of a platformer than anything else. It just so happens that your method of traversal is a plank with four wheels on it…

That said, it is still an entertaining game, and one that offers a lot for the player to get through. It leads the player off on a gentle learning curve, presenting basic ideas and trick types in simple to follow tutorials. And once you get into the action, there are various levels of expertise that determine exactly how hard the game is going to be. But it’s not all a walk in the park at later levels OlliOlli 2 demands near-absolute precision, or you’re going to be doing things all over again.

To this end, the game’s crisp controls and near-instant reloading of levels makes things a lot less painless; if you make a mess of things in OlliOlli 2, you’re the one to blame, not the game’s technical side.

The stylised presentation and enticing sound track add to the overall feel, tying everything together in a neat package. And those that develop the right skills will love the fact that you can go through an entire level performing one long trick combo. That’s pretty awesome.