Rooftops & Alleys: The Parkour Game, developed by MLMEDIA and published by Radical Theory and Shine Group, is available now on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Rooftops and Alleys reminds me of games like Skate. The SKATE system introduced a more realistic skating system, in which you had to think and practice to execute the moves successfully. Rooftops and Alleys takes a similar approach, meaning that you have to practise the movement system to truly master it. You’ll learn more about the system as you progress. The tutorial starts by introducing you to the control system, which includes jumps, grabs, tricks and linking combos. At first, in Rooftops & Alleys, it can be quite daunting trying to remember the controls to pull off these moves. It took me a while to master landing, grabbing and pulling off the tricks. In the video below, you can see many of my failures during my learning period. Once you feel that you’re the ultimate parkour master, you can take it online with other players to compete and hang out. On PS5, I encountered errors trying to join certain games. This didn’t detract from my overall experience; however, I do think it needs fixing.
Once you’ve learnt the ins and outs, you’ll get to choose from 6 maps, each themed differently with unique features. For example, one of my favourite maps was the cargo ship; it had so many places to pull off a variation of moves, which was enjoyable. Other maps include a school, a parkour warehouse, a steel yard, and more. On your map of choice, you’ll be given the option to collect pigeon collectables, which lets you earn customisation options for your parkour champ. Once you’ve collected everything, you’ll have a massive array of different options to set yourself apart from the rest of the players. You’ll also unlock ways to explore new trick locations by taking control of the parkour pigeon, which opens up many ways to tackle challenges to become the best parkour athlete. There isn’t a story to go alongside it, it’s more like a Tony Hawks Pro Skater type of approach with time trials, trick challenges and more, I do wish there was a little more to it like collecting the letters to make parkour and some other little sidequests just to beef the game up a little more. I do feel solo, while fun to pull off tricks, it gets stale fast. The game shines more online when you’re with others, though I just felt like there could be more content, and who knows, maybe with future updates, this will happen. The structure of Rooftops & Alleys is there; it’s a fun game with a few glitches here and there, but overall a solid experience which gets better the more you learn.
The graphics fit the theme perfectly, the environments are all vastly different from one another, and nothing ever feels copied/pasted. Each location offers unique buildings, unique objects and props which help break up the gameplay. While the game looks good, the animations copy real parkour very expertly. I’m not a massive parkour watcher, but I have been watching Storror for a good few years, and all of the moves fit with what they do in the videos. The physics of each of the moves, even when you fall from a large height, reacts very realistically, which adds to the game’s deep detail within its move system. If you wanted you could make some great parkour videos from the comfort of your sofa and they’d compare to the real deal, a lot of love has gone into the design of the overall feel You’ll also have a soundtrack that I wasn’t fully into myself, but it has that parkour video feel, so for the big fans, it will fit perfectly. There is no voice acting, I think perhaps having NPCs pulling off moves or talking to would have added to the overall feel and to the audio of Rooftops & Alleys.
Verdict
I had fun with Rooftops & Alleys. I think there is a lot to love, and you can tell the developers have put a lot of love into it; it’s a passion project. However, while the moves and the gameplay are all spot on, it just feels like it’s missing content. I think more thought needs to be put into the challenges. Think back to Skate and Tony Hawks’ level challenges and variation; it just needs a bit more personality in that regard. What you have is a pretty solid foundation where everything works well. I just hope that in the future more content is added because this is single-handedly the best parkour game out there.
nerdybirdgames.com 