Skate (Xbox 360, 2007)

If you have played Tony Hawk, which I know you have, you are familiar with skateboard game mechanics. Unlike Tony Hawk, which relies mostly on button combinations, skate utilizes a unique control scheme called Flickit. To push off on your board and gather speed, you hit or hold the X and/or A button-x or A controls left or your right foot to push. Once you get rolling, you perform tricks by flicking the right analog stick around in various directions. For ollies, you pull down then push straight up, for kickflips you push up diagonally and pop shuvits require a Street Fighter II fireball motion. Grab tricks are a little different: the left and right triggers activate your skater's left or right hand for grabs and you can "tweak" the board for different tricks like Christ Airs by moving the right analog stick in different directions or by pushing the B button.

You really do have to play the game to get a true feel for how the control scheme works. The learning curve is steep and it took me a while to get the hang of it at first, but fortunately the game begins with a tutorial that teaches you how to play, and it is a great tutorial that keeps it fun (some tutorials in games are a bore). Once you become accustomed to the controls, it's pretty intuitive. Unfortunately, it isn't perfect. The control input difference between two flip tricks is often negligible on the analog stick, so you'll often find yourself doing one trick when you meant to do another. Grabs are also insanely difficult because of the finger gymnastics necessary--some of the harder grabs involve multiple fingers, all doing different things.

Skate will also force you to rethink the way you approach virtual skating. You can't simply skate around, magically hop onto stuff and trick out 12 million point combos like Tony Hawk. Instead, the play mechanics mimic real skateboarding; which is a much needed change in the world of video game skateboarding. I have to say I was growing tired of the same Tony Hawk game every year with only a couple changes! When I got into playing Skate it was a fresh change, much needed.

Also the two other great aspects are Online play= Awesome, and create your videos!=super awesome! Unlike tony undergroud you can go back and save an awesome trick you didn't mean to do, or bail, and save it-create new effects/color, and upload it to the internet for all to see! Awesome! Tony's idea of this is you have to record and then try your trick; which doesn't help the fact that great tricks and experiences are usually NOT planned! That is why Skate kills tony in this field! Tony take a hint!

Graphics: 4.5 out of 5= Great graphics, better than prior Tony H...But I do feel they could have made the graphics even better.

Controls: 4.8 out of 5 = High because of the awesome change in mechanics, very fun. Not perfect only because the analog stick control for tricks may create a trick you were not trying to hit.

Sound= 5 out of 5 = Maybe I am scoring it high, but the sound of wheels on pavement and other surfaces sounds great. The sound of bails and soundtracks sound good too.

The F factor (fun!)= 4.5 out of 5. Very fun, and a game you can always pick up.
Replayable and online keeps it going.

This game blows tony hawk out of the water by far.
this game flows really well, has a pretty good career mode,
and is decently Realistic.
Something else cool is all the beast pros tony hawk didn't care about
such as Chris Cole, Jerry Hsu, Rob Dyrdek, P.J. Ladd, Terry Kennady, Ryan Gallent, and lots of others. Along with those guys are the new sponsers they
carry like Alien workshop, Fallen, enjoi, Hubba, Silver,Kr3w, Venture and Some others.
Another Really cool thing is that you get to pick all of your sponsors from your shoe deal, your wheel sponsor, your board sponser, and last but not least your truck sponser. Also you get to create your skater with a varity of clothing and Creation options. You also get your cloths free from your sponsers along with other stuff they carry.
Somthing else is that you do photo shoots and get to pick your photos that make it into thrasher or Skateboard Mag, As a bonus u can always redo it if you dont like any of them. Along with your photo you also get to film for your spot in the new skate videos or even if you just do something really good you ca also go to your pause menu and save a replay of it to edit, submit to Skate.Ea.com or just to show off.

But overall this game is extremely good and if your debating to get it or not you can always download the demo to try it out.

The mechanics in Skate are marvelous to one such as myself, with the only skating games behind me being from the Tony Hawk franchise. Focusing tricks with the right analog stick, grabs with the left and right triggers, and accelerating with the 'A' button, pulling off impressive stunts comes off naturally. The environment is gorgeous for being a skating game, reminding me of Mirror's Edge more so than anything else I can think of. This franchise has certainly pulled many gamers away from the THPS tour with its innovation and realism; it allows skates to pull off tricks on the ground, every trick can be performed right away without having to fill up a silly bar, and customizing your skaters appearance with real merchandise from skating brands are all features that are new to this game type.

Complaints would obviously be with the realism employed by having a camera low and behind you, mimicking someone trailing you with a camcorder but annoying you if there is ever more than two objects in your immediate surrounding. Also, you will find that it sometimes takes 15 failures before you succeed at a mission. Lastly, your enemies will be curbs and facing into walls, since the game gives you a bit too much difficulty in navigating either.

I would recommend buying Skate, even if you only play it for a few hours and throw it in your video game shelf. Try to aim for $15 - $20 if you find one on ebay.

It gives you the lifelike feeling of skateboarding. IT makes you feel you are the actual one doing those tricks. Most other Skateboarding games you just tap a few buttons to do a trick. On "Skate" you actually do the motions you need to do on a real skateboard. I would give this game a A+. Some other really cool features are getting chased around by security guards, all the famous people you interact with, how you get to go to the X games, being in a magazine, and lastly and my favorite getting hit by cars or any other very dangerous or painful something. There is a photo shoot in the game where you need to break at least nine bones by going off a huge ramp and severely hurting yourself. Once again i give this game an A+ and this is now my favorite game. I'm looking forward to getting "Skate 2".

-Dave

First, let me get the few flaws out of the way. The game has an annoying camera angle, and sometimes it can get very frustrating that you're not able to get off your skateboard and walk (like in Tony Hawk's Underground).

But it's not too hard to get over the flaws once make your first ollie. The feeling of accomplishing an ollie with a flick of a joystick rather than a button is thrilling.
You'll quickly (relatively) pick up on gameplay as you go along the very large are of "San Van". In just a few hour to a couple days, you'll be flawlessly pulling of 3,000 point combos.

All in all, Skate is an excellent game. If the developers spend a little more time actually playing the game themselves, they would have figured out how frustrating it is to not be able to walk up the stairs by getting off your skateboard, and actually have to skateboard all the way around a building just to try the same trick over the staircase.

This isn't a very comprehensive review, but to anyone on the fence about purchasing this product, I'd say that this game will not disappoint. And I have very high expectations for Skate 2 coming out in 2009.

~Blasphemy4kidz