Ever wanted a half pipe game that serves as the best extension/update of the half pipe mini game from California Games? The Ramp has an oddly specific niche. It wants to strip out all the extras from a skateboarding experience and give you 4 ramps to just ride around performing tricks on. It’s a bold move that won’t appeal to many, but the agmeplay is really well done.
With a half pipe, two bowls and a ski-jump to use, you pick your ramp and get straight to it. You change direction with the left stick and press A with your xbox controller to decide when you are going to lean your rider weight onto the board. Doing this gives you momentum so you do it on landing jumps and when pushing up a ramp, letting go to take off and gain air. It takes a few minutes to get the rhythm down but you’ll be up and running with ease. Once in the air, you can use the right stick to move it around and make tricks. It feels fluid, intuitive and fun to do and with a grind button on the right bumper, the skating feels great.
It is just then there is little to aim for or do. There’s no scoring system, no combos, no leaderboards, no challenges. The Ramp doesn’t want any of those and the Steam page explicitly warns you that this is a game only for people who just want to jam on a half pipe for a while. Is it fun? Yes. Does it control well? Hell yes. Does its own simplicity mean it wears thin quickly? Sadly, yes too.
The four different ramps each offer a challenge in themselves. The half pipe is so easy to fly out of as you need to steer your rider properly. The swimming pool is the easiest of the four as unless you ride into the ladder, you can save any jump. The double bowl requires more precision as not all the walls are ridable and so you can end up falling over down the missing wall elements. The ski-jump is more of a one trick, big height novelty. It also has some really horrifying skater bugs where you crash land and your body stretches out with a giant neck or massive leg. I found it quite funny even though its a bug.
Ultimately, your mileage will hugely vary on what your need is. The Ramp plays beautifully but its more of a quick five minute noodle here and there rather than an engrossing experience. I wished there was a scoring system though and maybe a three minute time trial mode just to give it a little direction. For a very, very specific audience though – this will be golden mana.
Review copy provided by developer.
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