Roller Champions Review: Ubisoft launches the challenge to Rocket League

It is now clear, in the future of Ubisoft there are not only the sequels of the most popular brands such as Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed, but also multiple free to play with which the French company will try to conquer fans and keep them glued to the screen with microtransactions. and constant updates. Among the various free games belonging to this genre we also find Roller Champions the interesting sports title with an arcade spirit that has been in development for quite some time and has returned to show itself after a long period of absence from the scene.

This time, however, Ubisoft has returned to talk about its free to play with decision, since in a few days it has also been published on PC and old generation consoles. We then literally jumped on the ball to put on a pair of virtual skates and threw ourselves into the fray of the frenetic free game.

Let’s get physical

The idea around which Roller Champions was built is not so different from that had by Psyonix with its Rocket League (here is our review of Rocket League), since the Ubisoft title is nothing more than a mix of mechanics from other sports that give life to something completely new.

And just like in the radio-controlled toy car game, the rules are extremely simple to understand: two teams made up of three players with roller skates at their feet must defend the ball with tooth and nail as at the end of the arena there is a sort of basket that opens only if a team manages to complete one or more spins without ever letting the ball land in the hands of the opponents.

We can assure you that understanding the rules is as easy as playing, since the Ubisoft title makes simplicity and immediacy two of its fundamental characteristics.

But don’t be fooled: after completing the short tutorial, you will have the feeling that you have discovered all the gameplay of Roller Champions, but that’s not the case at all. It will be enough to spend a few minutes on the track to discover that the new free to play of the French company is the classic title in which a few moments are enough to perfectly understand its principles and take the first steps but that it takes hours of training to get really good at it. It is not so difficult to hit the center in the basket, give a push to the opponent or pass the ball to a teammate, but there are also many little extras in terms of gameplay that at the highest levels can only make the difference: between aerial contrasts, possibility of giving yourself the push by hooking up with your teammates or hovering in the air to make a parade and prevent the opponent from scoring, there are many mechanics that are not necessary for the purpose of the game but which should be learned by anyone who really wanted to try their hand in this virtual sport.

Whether you decide to play casual or expert, Roller Champions hit the target of entertaining the player, even and above all if you are in the company of two friends with whom you can communicate constantly. While the action on the screen is perfectly legible and it is possible to ask for a ride with the push of a button, however, we have noticed how games with random users tend to be more frustrating because there is a lack of coordination.

Just to give an example, it is almost impossible to take advantage in games with ‘random’ the opportunity to complete several consecutive laps and multiply the score to the point of closing the match with a single goal, a highly risky but rewarding action with the priceless. humiliation of opponents.

From zero to hero

While offering a fun gameplay, Roller Champions fails to support him adequately with a set of modes and progression systems able to offer on the one hand the variety that all products of this type need and on the other the reason to stay glued to the screen for months and months.

With the exception of the Skate Park, which is nothing more than an arena in which to train alone or in the company of friends without a specific goal, all Roller Champions’ current offering revolves around the same mode. Whether you decide to play 2v2, the competitive mode or the classic games, the game will be almost identical and all those collateral modes are missing that can guarantee that freshness that characterizes productions such as Rocket League, beloved years after its release and capable of to renew itself season after season.

To season everything is a unhappy matchmaking system that, perhaps due to the lack of public interest in the production, continues to match players without taking into account their skills and based exclusively on the number of spectators, which correspond to nothing other than the experience level and not the actual skill. The biggest problem with Ubisoft production, however, is another.

The French software house has made the same mistake with Roller Champions as Electronic Arts with Knockout City, proposing a product characterized by solid gameplay mechanics but without the support of a Artistic direction able to capture the attention of the player and encourage him to purchase costumes and passes. Nowadays it is almost impossible for such a product to be able to make its way through the increasingly demanding public without an attractive design, since it is a fundamental element for the survival of a free to play. Whether it’s the skins on sale in the store, the ones that can be unlocked for free with the loot boxes or the ones available with the short season pass, none of them really make you want to enter your credit card details. Even the characters, no matter what they wear, they have the air of being puppets devoid of personality and style: this lack of character emerges above all in the final screen of each match, during which you can see the characters cheer anonymously on a background that seems to belong to that of a product still under development.

As for the technical sector, Roller Champions tries the now popular route trodden by Fortnite, Knockout City (to learn more here is the review of Knockout City) and many other free to play. The character models and the arenas themselves (the number of which is negligible), all very colorful, are not particularly rich in details but this allows the game to have more than acceptable performances on all platforms without creating annoying differences between one and the other one. About that, Ubisoft has not yet released a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S version of the gamealthough the title works perfectly on all the latest generation machines through backwards compatibility.