Skateboarding titles aren't familiar to many PC gamers. One of the early good ones debuted on the PC with Skate or Die, but since then, the likes of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and .skate on consoles captured the interest of fans. The PC might be lucky enough to get a port or two of those titles. While the genre may not be as popular as it once was, there are those who are determined to make a good skating game on any platform. One such developer is Roll7, who released OlliOlli earlier this year to critical acclaim. Months after it debuted on the Vita, it touched down on the PC relatively intact.

When you boot up the game, you'll notice some major differences when compared to the more popular titles in the genre. For one thing, it goes back to basics in terms of what one may expect from an extreme sports game. There are no pro skaters represented, and you can't create your own, so you're stuck with the same guy in a green shirt and trucker cap. There are also no skating brands, so those looking for RVCA-branded boards and logos, for example, are at a loss.

Another big change is in the general gameplay, which shifts away from a 3-D presentation and takes things back to 2-D. The game now feels like an endless runner. You're always in motion, and all it takes is two kicks to reach your top speed. Unlike an endless runner, levels do end, and they are a relatively good size, but one crash means you must restart the level from the very beginning. There is an upside to this, however, in that you never have to worry about maintaining your balance on a grind, and the more straightforward approach means more time to concentrate on tricks rather than finding the right spot to perform them.

The gameplay also gets a big change from the control scheme, which can take some getting used to. Unlike previous games, where just about every button on the controller was used, your button count is significantly reduced. The bumper buttons control spin and act as modifiers for tricks. The A button acts as your kick button and your landing button, and when you hit the button determines the quality of the landing. Hit it at just the right time, and you'll get the maximum amount of points. Hit it at a bad time, and you'll be off-balance and your speed will be reduced, essentially negating all of the points you've earned. The most important part of the controls is the analog stick, which is used to determine what kind of trick you'll pull off. Motions only result in a jump when the stick is released, so you'll have to retrain your brain to quickly perform the motion and let go. It's similar to how .skate handled its trick system, though the motions are with the left analog stick instead of the right one.

This isn't to say that all of the gameplay mechanics established by predecessors has been forgotten. Each of the levels comes with five goals to complete, and those goals vary wildly, from getting a specific point combo to collecting all of the items before reaching the end. Completing those goals and reaching the end of the level works toward opening up other levels in five different worlds, each with specific themes, like a Russian military base and a junkyard in the American southwest. The game still adheres to the idea of the high score chase, with each stage sporting its own leaderboards.

Those leaderboards serve as a great impetus for players to replay the same levels, and the level design certainly feeds into that. Restarting a level has been simplified into a single button press, and there aren't any load screens between level restarts. You'll use this quite often when you feel like you messed up. Though the game is less freeform in 2-D than in 3-D, there are still several places where it branches off to let you experiment. Even in levels where there are no alternating paths, the level design is very big on long grinds, big jumps, and combinations of the two.

To that end, the Spots section is enjoyable because you're given a small section of a stage and asked to squeeze out as many points as you can over a long combo. Further expanding on that idea is the Daily Grind challenge, which highlights a new spot every day and asks you to register your best run on the leaderboard. While you can practice that run as many times as you want, you only have one chance to make it count, so flubbing the line at that opportunity is even more soul-crushing than expected. It also gives you an indescribable feeling of elation when you nail it — until you see the astronomical top score.

For those who are into completing goals, the game still has plenty to offer. While it isn't necessary to complete all five goals in each stage to unlock the next stage, you open up a pro version of the stage if you do. As expected, the goals are harder, and the levels are quite different. There are more obstacles, and the jumps and grind locations are tweaked just enough to make it feel different. The game gives the player the goal the second they complete it instead of making them finish the stage afterward. This changes when you unlock the rad difficulty, which has much harder goals and level layouts and asks you to complete them all in one run.

There are only a few bad things that can be said about OlliOlli. You'll definitely need a controller since playing with the keyboard is next to impossible if you plan to make any progress. Also, the game seems pretty finicky in terms of reading your analog stick movements. A quarter-circle motion can be interpreted as a simple Ollie, so dialing down the exact motions that the game wants you to perform can be frustrating. Finally, the title doesn't seem to have a huge library of tricks. The tricks performed here are real, but the omission of grabs feels odd when different jumps and grinds are well represented.

Graphically, the game looks very nice. Like a number of recent indie games, the title uses pixels to construct everything, but here, they're so densely packed that you have to look more closely to see the jagged lines. The backgrounds move on several different planes to create a nice sense of depth, and the game uses a wide color spectrum to make the world feel lively; it's especially notable in the Japanese-inspired neon city levels. More importantly, there is a smart use of color. No matter which level you're in, the backgrounds share one family of colors and look a bit muted. Meanwhile, the foreground elements have much brighter colors that make them easier for the player to determine what they can ride or grind on. The quick color identification is essential when the game is moving at top speeds and without dropping a single frame. It already looked great on the Vita, and the move to the PC's higher resolutions has only made the graphics shine brighter.

Audio-wise, the game is better than expected. Voice work is minimal, but the cheers of the crowd as you speed toward the finish line are nice and clear. The same can be said of the sound effects, like the grinding of axles on metal and your body getting crunched as you hit the pavement, all of which sound good, if a little gruesome, at times. The music is the real star in this section, though, with a nice blend of hip-hop, electronic, and upbeat jazz in the soundtrack. It's all instrumental material, a wise choice when you consider how many times you'll restart a stage, and it provides enough of an up-tempo beat that it fits perfectly with the high energy that's a hallmark of skating. While you can skip tracks at will, you'll find that the body of the soundtrack is so good that you won't bother doing so.

In the end, OlliOlli is quite good. It's familiar enough for genre fans to be able to pick up quickly, yet it's different enough that it feels fresh. It's challenging enough to make people work for their high scores, but not to the point where retrying the same level becomes infuriating. It features a good amount of gameplay that can be endless if you like chasing high scores, and though it is best enjoyed in short bursts, playing it in prolonged sessions doesn't hurt. Even if it doesn't cause a resurgence in the extreme sports genre, OlliOlli can stand as one of the better sports games on the PC.

Score: 8.5/10