Skate is EA’s first entry into the skateboarding genre, and it does a pretty good job of reviving the genre after the Tony Hawk series went downhill after THUG. I wouldn’t say Skate is for everyone, but if you are looking for a realistic alternative to Tony Hawk, this is the game to get.
There are no levels in Skate, you start the game with one big city to explore, with certain skate parks (such as the X-Games skate park, or the B Plan Warehouse) being unlocked after you progress through career mode. You can also discover hot spots (which opens up the ‘Own The Spot’ mode where you try to get a certain number of points in a specific area).
There are no stats like in Tony Hawk; you can’t buff up your character to have high speed, jump, or balance; you simply pick a skater and skate. This makes the game based more on raw skill rather than who has the best stats.
Career mode is basically the rags-to-riches mode, where you start off with nothing, but eventually gain fame through skating contests, pro challenges, and magazine sponsors. This is where one of the games big flaws (or rather an annoyance) comes in: advertising.
Advertising in a game is OK, but if and only if it is relevant to the game itself. Putting something like Skateboard Magazine, Thrasher, Plan B, Girl, etc. is all good, because I think it makes the game look realistic; but I can’t help but find it annoying whenever I check my messages or change songs on my T-MOBILE SIDEKICK (which is advertised on billboards in-game, too,) or being asked to go out and check out a pair of Addidas shoes that this certain skater wears. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s just annoying.
The most innovative thing about Skate is the control scheme. In Tony Hawk, pressing buttons pulls off tricks. In Skate, there is a Flick-it system that is used to do tricks. The left analog stick controls your body movement while the right stick controls the skateboard. For example, to do an ollie, you would flick the right stick straight up. To do a kick flip, you would flick the right stick in an upright direction (this will. This new method of pulling off tricks seems hard at first, but you eventually get better over time as you spend more time playing. A big flaw with this system, however, is that there are too many tricks to pull off with just one stick, which makes the later objectives in career mode extremely hard. You might be asked to do a laser flip down a flight of stairs, and accidentally do a pop shuvit.
Outside of career mode, you are free to skate anywhere in the city, and if you find a spot you want to skate in, you can always save your position with the session marker and start a session. One flaw though, is the loading times. If you load your session marker while in a session, you may hit a loading screen, which can get annoying after awhile.
Another innovation in Skate is the ability to save replays. Since you are always followed by a cameraman, if you do something cool that you want to save, you have the ability to save up to 30 seconds of replay footage. In addition, you can also switch camera angles, take screenshots, and add different video effects in the replay editor. You can also upload it to Skate.reel, an online database showing pictures and videos uploaded by other skaters around the world that you can view or download to your hard drive.
The online mode has a variety of modes to play, such as jam sessions, S-K-A-T-E (H-O-R-S-E), and other contest modes that are playable in the single player career mode.
The soundtrack in Skate is pretty good. You have a selection of genres ranging from classic hip hop like Eric B. and Rakim to heavy metal bands like Slayer, but you also have the option to play your own mp3s stored in your Xbox 360 hard drive.
Skate is a fresh breath of air for the Skateboarding genre that, despite some flaws, is a blast to play. You owe it to yourself to at least give this game a try if you are interested in skateboarding or skateboarding games.
Pros:
· A big city to explore.
· A Replay feature.
· Online play.
· A session mode that lets you save your spot when trying to do tricks in a certain area of the game.
Cons:
· Control issues when doing trick-specific objectives in career mode.
· Blatant advertising.
· No park creator.
· Can’t get off skateboard, which makes getting to certain areas of the game difficult (ie upstairs)