"OlliOlli" on PlayStation 4 feels like I imagine cutting a skateboarding video does — with the added benefit of never actually crotching myself on an iron railing.
I can just turn on the camera with a double-click of the DualShock 4's share button and start taking runs at Roll 7's side-scrolling skateboard title, which was recently made available on PlayStation 3 and 4 after being released for the Vita in January.
Most of my efforts last seconds, ruined by a graceless landing or a failure to vault over some poorly placed garbage. But every once in a while, I can chain together a sequence of grinds and spinning midair grabs that's maybe worth watching to someone — even if it's just me.
The splats happen less often as you get a grip on "OlliOlli's" elegant controls. Pressing the X button provides your 16-bit skater a speed boost and, if done inches from the ground, sticks his landings perfectly. R1 rotates him in midair, but makes him crash and burn if you're still holding it when he hits surfaces. And pulling down on the left analog stick over rails and other edges initiates grinds — again, the closer to the surface, the higher the score. Nudging or twirling the stick in any other direction while skating fires off ollies and a whole foreign lexicon of leaping tricks.
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It'll take some time to internalize these three controls enough to reach the end of the game's 50 levels, let alone threaten their online leaderboards. Later courses on a sunny boardwalk and a gray Russian military base arrange jumps and obstacles with so little tolerance for error, and at such breakneck speed, that you'll find yourself memorizing their layout, much like the NES' more masochistic side-scrollers.
Eventually you'll own them all, in no small part because the control system strikes the perfect balance between accessibility and depth. As you play, you learn, and as you learn one trick, you find there's another yet. After an hour or two, you'll be able to trigger hardflips and bigspins like they're second nature, but slip out of this feeling of oneness with the game and its blitzing speed, and you'll be face-planting at the next set of stairs. A good way to wipe your mental slate clean is to skip to the next song on the game's eclectic soundtrack, which flits from jazz to dubstep with a flick of the right trigger.
There's another godsend control, too: The ability to immediately restart your run by pressing the DualShock 4's touchpad. No level lasts more than a minute, so you might as well take a perfectionist tack and start over at the slightest slip-up, be it a mere "sick" landing instead of a "perfect" one, or a 540 when you know you could've made it a 720. However, this isn't an option on the game's daily grinds, a fresh new challenge every day that gives you only one crack at the leaderboard. Nor does it matter on spots, in which you string together as many stunts as you can until your combo meter resets to zero.
With a rad career difficulty that demands only perfect landings, as well as the leaderboards, the temptation to continually tighten your grip on "OlliOlli's" controls and tricks will remain powerful. And if that isn't what keeps you on wheels, it'll be the chance to put together a hell of a stunt show for the social media highlight reel.
