Rollerdrome
Everything’s more fun on roller skates
The retro-cel-shaded looks and action scenes are undeniably cool.
© PRIVATE DIVISION, TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE
SINGLE-PLAYER, THIRD-PERSON ACTION SHOOTER
SOME GAMES are defined by their graphics, some by their plots, and others by their dialog choices. However, there’s also a more nebulous category of games that are defined by their feel, and Rollerdrome is most definitely one of those.
How does it feel? Cool. Outrageously so. It involves roller skates, and its main influences seem to be The Running Man (1987) and Rollerball (1975), which are so likely to be lost on anyone under 30 as to perhaps be new and fresh.
The plot is that you are the newest recruit to a near-future, arena-based bloodsport by the name of Rollerdrome, in which challengers take on (and shoot) the ‘house players’—all manner of out-ofwork professional wrestlers and Mad Max extras armed with spiky clubs, armor, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers. For reasons left completely opaque, but probably to do with speed, fluidity of movement, and traversal, they’re expected to do this on roller skates.