Whip it Good: Roller Jammer skates into the Arcade Archives

Rock, Rock, Rockin’ Rollergames…

It’s time to get your skates on, quite literally, (well, digitally), as the retro fun fans over at Hamster have added Nichibutsu‘s whirling derby dervish Roller Jammer to PS4 and Nintendo Switch — the latest addition to its record-breaking Arcade Archives range.

Release to arcades way back in 1984, Roller Jammer is a very loose take on the world’s most complicated sport: Roller Derby. Instead of being packed out with screaming, tattoed gals sporting cool names like “Anna Geddon”, this digital take on hard-hitting wheeled warfare features a bunch of boring 8-bit dudes. We were still a good six years away from the debut of the outrageous, WWE-like show Rollergames, and thus Roller Jammer boasts a less glamorous, simplistic take on the sport.

Check out the action in the video below, courtesy of YouTuber Old Classic Retro Gaming.

Perhaps understanding that it does not have tech available to recreate the ins and outs of roller derby proper, Nichibutsu chooses to play a little fast and loose with its adaptation of the sport, tasking playing with gunning through thin slaloms of flags before eventually engaging in an every-man-for-themselves race, complete with a hilarious “double lariat” maneuver. While Roller Jammer‘s relative obscurity makes this Arcade Archives release a little notable, ultimately it’s pretty difficult to recommend this title.

Roller Jammer is available to download now on PS4 and Nintendo Switch, priced at around $8.