Title Skate Date 10.12.2007 Genre Sports Platform Xbox 360 Developer EA Publisher EA

Pros
+ Plenty of things available to players to prevent boredom; enter competitions, make videos, or opt to skate freely through the large map.
+ Graphics are at their best in this game, with plenty of attention made to the faces and sponsored attire of the skaters.
+ Controls allow for a more realistic skateboarding experience, with the triggers controlling each hand and a grind's success relying completely on how you line up the board to a rail (as opposed to pressing a button).
+ Areas are diverse and filled with objects that your board can interact with.
+ Top quality audio in voice acting, sound effects, and yes, even the music selection for EA Trax.
+ Plenty of customization for your skater, with dozens of outfits to purchase.

Cons
- Right stick requires a high degree of precision to master, and sometimes you will end up performing the wrong stunt with the tricks being so similar to one another.
- Camera is zoomed in too far and cannot be controlled by the player, lending to some annoying situations where you can't see the direction your player is skating.
- Lag issues need to be resolved online in order for the Xbox Live experience to be at its best.

Skate is not, and I repeat, is not, Tony Hawk.

Okay, breathe. Now that we've gotten that inevitable comparison out of the way, let's hone in on the game at hand. Skate. Extreme sports title for the Xbox 360. You might have heard of it, or maybe even tried out the demo sometime between your BioShock playthrough and the Halo craze that hit at the end of September. Or maybe you're looking at it as a holdover until Proving Ground comes out - but I promised I wouldn't speak of that other skateboarding series. But just in case the reason for your interest in skate was the latter, prepare to be shocked. Its development team, EA Black Box, has promised a more realistic skateboarding game, which essentially translates to the inability for your skater to perform a front flip from an ollie, or shoot fifty feet into the air from a half-pipe. This does not mean, however, that you magically won't crash, because you will. Again, and again, and again…

So there's a slight learning curve involved. Okay, that can be handled. Besides, let's face it, that's to be expected when someone completely reinvents the control scheme for a genre, which is exactly what EA has done. It works similarly to Fight Night‘s dual-analog action: Instead of pressing the A button to jump, another to flip, another to grind (which can deduce gameplay to a button-mashing bonanza), everything is controlled with the right analog stick. Want to nollie over a ramp? Just flick the right stick up, then down. Want to do a nose manual when you land? Nudge the right stick up a little while you're in the air. Want to kick-flip into a grind, or grab your board on the half-pipe, or slide to a halt after a pop-shuvit? Not a problem if you “flick-it “properly. Here's the bottom line: If it can be performed in real life, it can be performed in the game. Pull up the menu to see what combination of moves are required to pull off your career-defining stunt, and you're good to go.

It takes a lot of attempts to fully grasp the control scheme, however, and this becomes painfully apparent when you play your first game of S-K-A-T-E (think H-O-R-S-E with skateboards). Your opponent does an ollie and you may find yourself accidentally flying off the ledge doing a hard-flip because the difference between executing one trick and another is minimal. Yes, the controls are innovative and the controls are responsive, but you must have a steady thumb to fully master the game. This essentially boils down to southpaws being doubly frustrated when their character mates with the ground for the umpteenth time, an event which will happen to everyone during the first few minutes of gameplay. The falls, though, are well executed. Sometimes the physics engine hiccups and you see your skater fly through the air like he's been shot out of a cannon, but generally, the falls are realistically portrayed. You hit a curb, you skid unceremoniously across the sidewalk and introductions are made. Pavement, meet face. Hope you don't mind that a piece of your chin is caught on that pebble over there. Yeah, the falls are brutal - the more severe ones have a medical chart pop up to show how many bones were broken in the process of stacking body atop street - and honestly, in the end isn't that what we all want?

Falls aside, most of the movements performed in this game are fluid and well animated. The frame rate stays solid when you make your character crouch or slide to a stop, and your mentors look this close to real people when they explain how to rack up combos. There are a number of pro-skaters who offer their voices to the game, and they do a good job at explaining the basics: how to jump, how to grind, and, most importantly, how not to fall. These helpful pros are scattered throughout the first couple locations you will be moving through - just look for a swatch of blue scribbled on your map and they'll be there patiently waiting once you travel there. Rarely will you find yourself lost while playing skate; the map is easy to decipher and you can use the subway to travel between locations. Your stereotyped punk teenager friend, Shingo (you know, the type that thinks parents and homework are just so lame), will send text messages your way whenever a new competition opens up. You have a backpack full of helpful goodies and a few goals in mind: to land on the cover of the creatively named Skateboarding Mag and to win gold at the X-Games.

All of the locations, from the schoolyard to the skate park, look impressive. Each of the four different zones in the fictitious San Vanelona - Downtown, the Res, Old Town, and the Suburbs - has a distinct feel to it. Soar through the air thanks to the marble ramps jutting over the center of Matrix Plaza, all before chugging it up to the Octo-Bowl's eight quarter-pipes. There are scores of benches and ramps and empty pools that beg to have your wheels glide across their slick surfaces. And there are plenty of activities to do in each area, as EA have included a number of mini-games for you to spend your precious skating hours completing. Most significant in this lineup is the camera event, where a sports photographer offers to capture your best tricks with his camera or camcorder. These clips can be easily set up and even more easily edited once the footage is shot; change camera angles and crop clips to your liking to create the perfect film. Once you have that golden video of you rolling through the Spillway's drainpipe, load it up online and watch your virtual skater friends foam with envy.

Online play can be a little less enjoyable, due to the lag that sometimes rears its ugly head in the middle of your competition. Up to five rival skaters can pile themselves into one game with you, and if you all are patient enough to wait while the game loads up, you will be rewarded with a fun, albeit laggy match of S-K-A-T-E. More than temporary frame rate delays, or a weak social experience, or losing a game because you crashed over a rail, you'll be frustrated with combating the same problem that presented itself in the single-player game: camera angles.

Because the right stick controls your tricks and not your line of vision, the camera's control lies solely in the hands of the game. And let's face it: When the computer handles the direction of the camera, there are going to be problems. If there are static backgrounds, ala Resident Evil from its zombie days of yore, then sometimes the camera angle obscures your view of an enemy lurking in the next screen. If the camera does move, it has a tendency to swing wildly behind the character or get stuck on objects, corners, etcetera et al. In skate, the camera does not do either of the aforementioned examples, but it does have a tendency to zoom in a bit too much. If you don't mind focusing in on your skater's realistically rendered knee caps, then you will have a great time playing skate. If, however, you want to see where you're going at all times, you might have a problem when once you pop this title into your 360.

And oh, the EA Trax. We can't forget the EA Trax, the love ‘em or hate ‘em music roster that has been packaged with all the company's sports games over the past four years. Thankfully, the song selection in skate is nowhere near as myopically focused as some other titles, like the alt-rock on Madden, or the hip-hop that drones in the background of the Need for Speed series. Instead, EA has chosen a variety of tracks, both old and new, underground and mainstream that play softly in the background while you skate around, meaning that there should be a little something there for everyone. Sound effects are done nicely as well, particularly the sound of your wheels rolling over the different surfaces (pavement, gravel, grass) in San Valenola. Voice acting, as already mentioned, is solid, rounding out the full audio experience of music, sound, and voice with style.

You probably won't spend too long focusing on what's coming out of your speakers anyway. Instead, you'll be busy trying to master the flick-it system, which, whether you like it or don't, you have to admit is innovative. And hopefully the next time around, EA will fix the nagging problems that pop up in this game - I'm looking at you, shoddy camera control - because skate, the realistic alternative to a certain other skateboarding dynasty, is here for good.

Game Score

B+

Reviewed By: Contributed