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Skate 2 demo impressions
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Face it boarders and boarding fans, if you want to skate virtually on one of your consoles, you have essentially one of two options; you can pick Neversoft's proud, decade-old classic series, Tony Hawk--or you can go for Skate.
The Skate series started with the original in 2007. Designed by EA Black Box to be a more realistic take on skateboarding, players were given a chance to design themselves, pick a board and ride to glory. Much like Tony Hawk, in Skate players were plopped into a generic cityscape (San Vanelona, a mash-up of San Francisco, Vancouver and Barcelona) and instructed to cruise around looking for hot spots and professionals. From there they'd complete challenges in order to build up their stats and go full-on pro themselves.
The difference between the two? It all comes down to gameplay. Any fan of the Hawk series knows that the game is all about doing the most ridiculous stuff any skater has only dreamed of. See that set of power lines? You can grind them. Want to bridge the gap between two skyscrapers? Yup, you can do that too. The possibilities for tricks were only limited by your imagination, never by your skater's ability.
Skate takes the more realistic approach. You won't see yourself jumping three skyscrapers after launching out of a penthouse pool. No. You're going to grind realistic lines and pull off realistic tricks. It was refreshing, back in '07, to be able to pop in Skate and just roll around looking for new spots to drop.
Not to mention the fact that EA took a creative approach with controls as well. Instead of pressing 'A' to ollie, you'd flip the right stick down and then up. In fact, the right stick was the Mecca of your controls. Sure, a steep learning curve awaited first time tryers, but then experience set in and made the controls that much more rewarding.
But then problems started rearing up.
The game's objectives felt weak. Riding around, looking for pros to tell you what to do only goes so far to create a need to play. The bag of tricks, too, was incredibly small. And the control scheme, using the right stick to flip, forced a tiny margin of error into your skill-set. You'd spin the stick looking to pull off one trick when, nine times out of ten, you'd pull of something too similar to distinguish.
See, that was almost two years ago. Now the new Skate is coming out. The demo has been opened to the public and is available on Xbox LIVE right now. So, how did two years treat EA Black Box and Skate 2? Well...
Skate 2 comes with twice as many tricks as the original; these new additions include rail slides, foot-plants, handplants and the opportunity to skitch (skate and hitch, grab on to the rear-ends moving vehicles to get to places faster). You're also able to hop off of your board and walk, run and jump back up to higher spots. This was a bit obnoxious in the first iteration of Skate; you'd ride down a line and have to work your way back in a big loop if you wanted to try it again. Now you can just run straight to where you started.
The thing that get's this gamer most excited is completely new to the Skate series. Now, when you're off of your board, you can grab objects and move them. Stuff that you would be able to move in real life, of course, can be placed in-line with your vision. You'll pick things up, throw them down and create an unreal line only limited by your imagination and time.
There is a small storyline to the Skate series, but the demo will only grant you exceptionally limited access to it. The game is set five years after the events in Skate. The boarders in the fictional city of San Vanelona, were forced out by a series of disasters now identified as earthquakes. They have been pushed to New San Vanelona to keep on living the dream. The only catch is that security guards hae been stepped up and put in place to ruin the fun.
From the demo alone, most gamers will be able to tell whether or not the realistic approach to boarding is right for them. Skate 2 nails just as many things as the first game did, only this time the tweaking has been done for the better. The effort has been exceptional, and the demo itself comes highly recommended. So take the time out to download the 1.5 gig size demo and give it a go yourself.
Skate 2 looks and plays solid; let's hope the full game comes rife with enough variety to encourage an addictive playthrough.
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