Will Skate 3 grind its way to success, or will this annualized sequel fall into a pit of fail?
What’s Hot?
- Best version of Skate for new players
- Difficulty levels make skating easier
- New camera angles
- Sound effects and voice over’s a good.
What’s Not?
- Lack of a presentation improvement
- No need to upgrade if you have Skate 2
- Uploading features unavailable if bought used.
Ever since the original Skate in 2007, developers Black Box have been at the top of the skateboarding genre since the demise of the Tony Hawk series. One of the main reasons why was because Skate was not an annualised franchise, Skate 2 improved the series with new game play and presentation changes. Now a year later Skate 3 has arrived with limited changes but still offers a great experience, especially for newcomers.
Skate 3 tries in its single player mode or replicate the online experience using AI and real human players to join your team. Skate 3’s career mode puts you in the shoes of a skater after a freak accident (the reasoning for the character creator) who wants to get rich and famous by creating his/her own company. To do this you will need to sell 1 Million skateboards by completing a set of challenges that range from death races, promotional events, magazine shoots to skating against the pro’s. The more famous you become the more team mates will join your crew to help you rise to the top, if you have a friend playing Skate 3 you can import their character for your team, no need to wait for them to upload it.
Skate 3’s career progress can be furthered online and off, like Burnout Paradise's online modes you can make a lobby and have the full world for you and your friends to skate around in, then you can complete challenges that will progress your carrer and get you more board sales. Some challenges give you more boards if completed online, giving you a bigger incentive. It takes about 7 hours to reach the 1 Million board goal using online and offline challenges.
If you want to be the best, you have to know how to skate and that where Skate 3 shines. Skate was criticized for being too difficult, Skate 2 refined the system and now Skate 3 improves with 3 difficulty options, Easy, Medium and Hardcore. Easy mode makes grinds, flips and jumps all greatly simplified; perfect for newcomers of the series. Hardcore mode intensifies the game play for a more challenging, rewarding experience. Some improvements to the controls through theFlick it! system, where tricks are still pulled off with the left and right thumb stick (with the left stick controlling your body and the right controlling the board) and right and left triggers for grabs.
Skate 3 also features a better park creator, with more items to use to create the best park, which you can upload to the Skate servers for others to view. though this only applies if you bought the game new, which is one of EA's new systems which also applies to the video and image up loader too.
Due to the nature of the release schedule the visuals have not changed much in Skate 3. The main change is Skaters will also notice a new option to use either a high or low camera angle while cruising around town. You can use this if you enjoyed the camera in the Tony Hawk series.
One final change is in the audio. Jason Lee (My Name Is Earl) voices your tutor chiming in to help you learn, a big list of pro skaters also comment in when you vs. the pros. Skate 3 also features a whole host of great tracks and very good sound effects of the skateboards including the wheels on different surfaces.
Skate 3 has a whole host of new game play refinements and better online features. While I recommend it for new players or people who missed Skate 2, however Skate 2 players wont miss much from this new version.