![]() ![]() ![]() When OlliOlli 2 is at it’s best, it’s pure adrenaline in much the same way a perfect run from the summit of Big Mountain to it’s base in SSX 3 was. That said, the rush you get when you successful land a combo spanning an entire level is nothing short of being blissful. It’s not overly frustrating or anything, but it’s something that could’ve been tightened up a little bit. Unfortunately, the system the game uses for these is a little finicky, and there’s times when it simply doesn’t work. A less thrilling addition are switch grinds, which allow you to switch from one grind to another seamlessly (in theory). ![]() Once I did though, they became second nature, and I was pulling them off without even thinking. The addition of manuals and reverts to the tried and true OlliOlli formula allows you to chain together longer, higher-scoring combos, and while the reverts are easy to learn, it took me a little while to perfect the manuals. You can also use the bumpers to spin in the air for extra points, but the game never actually explains this mechanic to you until near the very end. You can pre-load them by holding it down and then flicking to jump into a trick, or just flick it to do your basic ollie, kickflip and heelflip, while correctly following up with a press of the X button lands the trick. It’s a simple game in concept, and remarkably easy to pick-up-and-play with a control system that only uses the left stick, X button and bumpers. Much like it’s predecessor, OlliOlli 2 is a perfect game to play while listening to a podcast, traveling to work on the train, or even just when you’ve got ten minutes to kill between other, more time-consuming duties. The original OlliOlli was one of the first games I picked up last year when I got my Vita, and one of the few games for that system to kept me coming back, day after day, and it’s sequel gives no indication that it’ll be any different. ![]() That’s not to say that realistic simulations of extreme sports don’t have their place, they certainly do, but it does mean that OlliOlli 2 eschews that in favor of serving up some heart-pounding old-school fun, and as a man with a history of basing work holidays around X-Games events that’s everything I could ask for in an era where these games simply don’t come out of the big studios anymore. We’ve long since passed the heyday of the extreme sports genre, and in many ways OlliOlli 2 feels like a throwback to the days of Tony Hawk and Dave Mirra more than it feels like it’s grinding along with contemporaries like Skate or Stoked. The point I’m trying to make here is that OlliOlli 2 scratches an itch for me that hasn’t been scratched since, well, OlliOlli. Ever since my cousin introduced me to Cool Boarders 2 on the PS1, I’ve played every major extreme sports release to hit home consoles, from the highs of 1080º Snowboarding, SSX, and the early Tony Hawk games, to the lows of BMX XXX and Shaun White Skateboarding. All the while I was cursing the fact that I wasn’t lucky enough to grow up in the Swiss Alps or down the street from a Californian skate park, though if I had I’d probably be too busy being in traction from attempting in vain to qualify for the Winter X-Games to play OlliOlli 2. Back in the late nineties, I developed a lifelong obsession for extreme sports. ![]()
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