Under-played Games I Adore: The Definitive Review

Rollerdrome, Rollerdrome. Where for art thou, Rollerdrome?

I’ve long held deep feelings of shame and guilt about a special group of games that I own, but do not play enough. This is a distinct category of bourgeois guilt from the hoarder’s curse of stacking up unopened, unplayed discs as this isn’t as much the consequence of a lack of time, but of some deficiency in skill or petty dissatisfactions with gameplay balances. Perhaps the greatest example of this is Rollerdrome, which I adore on a profound level. However, I don’t enjoy playing it as much as I think I should. This is entirely my fault - Rollerdrome syncs a bit too readily with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’s idea of flow states for my liking, where it sits on just the wrong side of technical for me to really gel with it.¹ Not that I find the skill ceiling out of reach and resent it for such, but more that I can’t be fucked to invest in it.² Nonetheless, I love the way it moves and the way it looks. It’s a stunning package in that regard, with its Jean Giraud visuals and heavy ‘70s retrofuturism delivered with impeccable taste.³ Much like another Giraud tribute, Sable, I am perfectly entertained by just watching the game in play. Sable’s fault was it suffering from the fatal two-bits of creeping mediocrity - it’s just a little bit boring and a little bit shit, mechanically. But hey, I really do love watching it play.

Sable was lucky enough to get a (limited) physical release, so you could stack it alongside Windwalker, Jet Set Radio and Killer 7 for a cel-shaded collection of aesthetic happiness, but shamefully Rollerdrome did not. It has a far more precarious life sitting on console storage much like the glorious Afterburner Climax, where there’s a very real possibility that within a decade, the only way to play may be piracy. Funnily enough, I was watching a random TikTok creator nosedive into a culture war that saw him morph from hero to villain in sharp fashion when he took a standpoint that in the post-PlayStation 4 era, physical releases for videogames are obsolete and anyone who complains about the lack of them is an idiot. This Gen-Z warlord got my attention from his documenting of niche meme content (which is great), but also for his incredible vinyl collection of industrial, drone and post-Aphex abstract electronica. Of course he ignores the irony, of course he doubles down extra-hard. But I felt utterly exempt from his criticism because for me, owning the physical release of games I love (but do not play) is my way of correctly honouring them. I own a bucket of Shmup discs I’ll never really commit to, and my 8-bit collecting is conducted entirely without any intention to play. I’ll buy loose Super Nintendo carts I find in the wild just to have them. But in the case of Rollerdrome and another game I adore (and did play, a lot), Echo, the lack of a physical release causes me actual anguish. The relationship, romance even, is incomplete on some fundamental level by which I understand what videogames are. My position here is so engrained and extreme that I’d happily buy a mocked-up box and insert if it was done properly, and I’d be even more happy if it contained a USB stick with a pirated copy of the game’s install file on it. Primarily because fuck you, IP-owners for not respecting what you own, but also to bring the titles into physicality beyond the walled gardens they’re trapped in. This is, of course, probably a Gen-X problem that afflicts plenty of Millennials, but for which Gen-Z and younger would find either romantic or baffling, much like my fondest example for understanding the idea of lost cultures, the age of steam. That’s the trains, not the digital game publishing platform, by the way. There’s a delicious circularity to Gen-Z finding meaning in the physicalisation of music, where surely it’ll extend to other media. There’s already a nifty trade in VHS copies of streaming-only (or disc-only) movies, so when every console is media-free, it’ll only be a matter of time before videogames on physical media returns.

As much as I love owning physical copies of games I adore and do not play, I am also guilty of filling in gaps to have what would be deemed correct to own as a respectable videogamer. But only to a point - I shamefully have Resident Evil 4 on Gamecube and the steelbox for PlayStation 2, but I can honestly say I’ve never really loved a single one of them. These are games I respect more than enjoy, but I’m not too fussed about completing my collections of the highlight Call Of Duty titles⁴ or anything made by Bioware.⁵ I couldn’t care less about having any of the Red Deads,⁶ but I cannot tell you how proud I am to have PlayStation 4 copies of the Shenmue 1&2 releases and Shenmue 3. I doubt I’ll ever play them, but I feel like I’ve honoured Yu by having them on my shelves. I fucking love my Yakuza collection even though I’ve only finished two of them. Of course I bought both Judgement titles as well. Both are still sealed, right? Perhaps as they should be. And yes, Infinite Wealth still sits completely untouched. But just this week, in a desperate attempt to avoid picking up the threads of my Avowed playthrough, I actually unsealed a PlayStation 4 game that I bought just to own. Death Stranding. I’m sure there’ll be more to say on that later - possibly after a bit of Death Stranding 2 - but I have to say it did feel wrong on some odd level. In my head, I was keeping Kojima’s tribute to walking for some grave incident in my medical future, as it would seem a fitting game to fill time in rehabilitative or palliative settings, but the general fizz around the sequel’s launch and a friend picking up his threads from the original pushed me over the line. Oddly, it sat with the Xbox One copy of Metal Gear Solid V that I got for like £1.99 as these totemic shrines to sophisticated gameplay design, though I am saving The Phantom Pain to play with my kids on a fresh save so they can see the magic unfold for themselves. And even though I initially wanted to kick off Death Stranding to get me grounding in the sequel, it seems I’ve been fully captured and could well be in for the duration. As for Avowed, that can wait until just before The Outer Worlds 2 comes out.

One real oddity in my contemporary purchasing is the urge to buy physical copies of games I loved on my Series S. I’m always on the lookout for Starfield discs, which are hilariously rare as fuck. Of the multiple CEXes I visit, they all have only one or two shelves for Series X/S releases, and these tend to be the AAA multiplats rather than the Game Pass gems I want to retain. In that context, seeing a disc copy of Avowed or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is like finding actual treasure, although the price points aren’t quite within my buffers for impulse purchasing. “One day, I’ll get them all for a quid”, I think, while nervously watching PlayStation 5 copies of Deathloop plateau at £10. One wonders if hanging on for further reductions is like hoping for first-party Switch releases to drop significantly in price. Surely it’ll happen, some day?⁷ Capping it all off is the retro re-release. I have two Gamecube copies of Ikaruga and harbour long-standing desires to own both Dreamcast and Naomi GD originals, yet I look at the PlayStation 4 and Switch copies with a kind of dissociative coldness.⁸ Likewise for the Switch release of Radiant Silvergun, although that is likely due to things being sullied by the stench of faux-elitist commercialism in the limited release industry. There’s a sense of alienation in the deliberate commodification of the already scarce. Something oleaginous in the exploitation of both the game and the customers, with those overblown deluxe sets that are only available for 3 hours or whatever. It feels trashy instead of respectful. Limiting instead of limited. And I’d be far happier paying an extra $30 for a Saturn original anyway.⁹ And that seems far more fitting for Treasure titles that, much like Rollerdrome, I will likely always admire and adore without ever coming close to completing.

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1. I kinda long for an idiot mode that sets the rollerblading at the Jet Set Radio level (or even more rudimentary than that, like Sunset Overdrive), offering more focus on Max Payne-style gunplay grandiosity and amassing an internal currency of cool points.

2. Massive apologies to Ben Schroder and Dan Croucher.

3. There's a restraint in how Rollerdrome leans on its obvious influences that never feels too cloying or reverential, while maintaining a kind of confidence in its own style to have serious swagger. The bold fonts, the hyper-dry cel-shading, the fine outlines. All judged to really sing. FUCK! I REALLY FUCKING LOVE THAT SHIT.

4. Ah but I do have PC copies of Medal Of Honour: Allied Assault and the original Call Of Duty, so fuck you, console jockey casuals.

5. Buying these would be like buying fancy copies of signature works of literature simply to have them visible in your bookcase because there is no fucking way I’m playing another fucking Mass Effect.

6. In my rabid fervour, it's actually a badge of honour to not own the AAA 10/10 standards. Sadly, I cannot dump my copy of Bloodborne because as everyone knows, you never, ever get rid of games, even if you have multiple copies of the same titles.

7. Anakin face meme, right there.

8. I mean, I say that with the air of the proud purist but if I won the lottery, the ‘there would be signs’ would be the sudden, colossal explosion of my Switch shmup collection.

9. Or the ST-V arcade original, naturally.