Well, there's a bunch of new tricks and gameplay mechanics, such as skitching, handplants, footplants and walking. They'd promised the ability to walk early on in the game's development, but still managed to fuck it up pretty badly. Even the update that was supposed to fix the walking was very lazily done and hardly made it any better. The career mode was as frustrating as before, but free skate still remains the essential part of the game, this time with an even better replay editor and support for more video uploads. Online is also much better this time, with a nice ranking system and 150 multiplayer goals as well as all the modes that were in the first skate. San Vanelona has also improved, with virtually no dead ends or empty places and more detail in textures. You even get to edit the level some with a set of rails and ramps.
Graphically it's pretty much the same as the first, except maybe some minor differences in animations and lighting effects. The game still sounds like skateboarding, but the soundtrack is less interesting, although a patch allows for custom soundtracks. But most importantly, the game still feels like skateboarding without being too technical to learn and master. But ultimately it's a somewhat disappointing release because it really feels more like an update than an actual sequel. They should have pushed the release date a bit further to perfect the game, and maybe introduce something new and important like manual/grind balance or different manual tricks. Even though I was disappointed, it still kept me addicted to the gameplay and I ended up spending dozens of hours in the game even after I had finished the game 100%, recording videos and uploading them to the servers.
