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Tony Hawk’s first real competition in years finally arrives. Activision scored a smash hit with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, which of course spanned a series of imitators. None were able to recreate the critical or commercial success of Activision’s juggernaut franchise as the series became ‘the’ skateboarding game. EA is looking to change that with Skate, a game that could best be described as a skating sim. Whereas Tony Hawk focuses on crazy, million-point combos, Skate focuses on smaller, more realistic moves thanks to an intuitive control scheme.
Skate begins with your character getting hit by a bus and thereby going into surgery, which allows the game to let you create your character. Your character is tasked with landing on the cover of two magazines and to do so you’ll have to win events and perform specific tricks. Some of the game’s goals have you holding a grind for a specific length of time or landing in a particular way, while others have you competing with other skaters in either races or trick competitions. There are some cool bits in the game, such as the fact that you’ll have to skate in “no skate” zones, which are patrolled by security guards waiting to push you off your board.
Skate’s biggest differentiator is the intuitive control scheme. It works like a greatly expanded version of Tony Hawk’s Project 8’s “Nail the Trick” feature. The left analog stick controls movement, the right analog stick controls how the board flips and the triggers control your hands. An ollie is completed by moving the stick down (to crouch) then back up (to jump). You can perform grabs by hitting the triggers (to grab your board) when you’re in the air. Grinding is performed by getting close to a rail, jumping and landing on the rail (or curb). It’s a really intuitive system that in many ways makes more sense than simply memorizing button combinations to pull off tricks. But it also means that you won’t magically get stat boosts as you play the game; to pull off better tricks you have to get better with the “FlickIt” control scheme. This means that you’ll have to learn the game’s timing to be able to pull off the increasingly more complicated moves. The end result is an extremely fulfilling (if sometimes frustrating) control system.
There are some minor annoyances that are associated with being the first game in a franchise. While the game doesn’t have loading as you skate around, it will load if you need to warp back to a location to retry a trick. Given the control scheme, this will happen often and the loading adds up over time. Also, the camera is positioned very close to your character (which allows the game to show off the character models) but also makes it somewhat difficult to accurately gauge distances.
Skate has a fairly thorough online component. The game includes S.K.A.T.E., where you have to recreate a move done by another skater, Jam, where you compete in a timed session for the highest score, best trick events, and others. Online is fairly lag-free, although one player with a bad connection can slow things down for everyone. In addition to the online gameplay, the game lets you take screenshots and capture videos of your performances, which can be uploaded online. The videos can then be seen through the game or on EA’s website, making it easy to share, rate and comment on the videos. It’s a clever community aspect and one that fits in well with the rest of the game.
The game’s graphics are great. The camera is positioned to mimic a skater skating behind you holding a camera. The character models are all very detailed and the game’s close camera really shows them off. All of the various tricks look great, too, thanks to a fluid animation system. The game’s different environments are all very realistic with plenty of sharp textures and numerous places to skate on. The framerate keeps up with the game all throughout.
Skate’s soundtrack is made up of EA’s typical rock and rap mix. You’ll find artists like Motorhead, Nirvana, Slayer and The White Stripes mixed in with Rakin and N.W.A. In an interesting twist, by default, Skate will only play the soundtrack during certain parts of the map where you would expect to hear music in real life. However, you can change the setting so that the soundtrack plays in the background at all times. The in-game sound effects all sound great and the guy “following” you provides occasional commentary.
Skate is extremely different from Tony Hawk but proves that the videogame skateboarding subgenre can hold two titles. There are some annoyances associated with Skate being the first in the series but overall the game is a blast. Skate’s intuitive control scheme won’t be for everyone but those that give it a shot will experience some of the most fulfilling gaming moments of any sports game. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Sep 20, 2007
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