"skate" Redefines Skater Games From the Ground Up

For years, skating games have been synonymous with one name: Tony Hawk. The famous trickster’s massively popular skating series hits its ninth iteration this year, with each version more and more focused on outrageous stunts, killer combos, and other over-the-top antics—harassing seniors and ticking off the police, for example. Gamers looking for a more realistic skating experience have been left high and dry—that is, until now.

Enter Electronic Arts’ new aptly titled skating simulation skate, released for Xbox 360 on Sept. 14, and for Playstation 3 on Sept. 24. Seeking to provide players with a more authentic skating experience, skate is a stunningly realistic and often maddeningly difficult skating adventure, replete with contemporary skating culture, believable tricks, and a new control system that makes Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater feel artificial by comparison.

As the challenger to the skating monopoly, skate at first seems like it is trying just a bit too hard to prove itself a legitimate contender. Upon starting the game, gamers are forced to sit through a tepid five minute introductory video introducing all the real-world skaters that appear throughout San Vanelona, the game’s fictitious urban setting reminiscent of San Francisco’s hills grafted onto Los Angeles.

Having satisfactorily established its “cred,” skate nearly tosses it all out by shoving an unprecedented amount of in-game product placement in your face. Players enter the character’s name by typing it into a T-Mobile Sidekick as a text message and choose his—sorry, ladies, skate’s female options are a bit lacking—clothing brand in a relatively versatile Create-A-Skater mode. But it’s after the overwrought introduction that skate really begins to roll.

At this point, skate immediately places gamers in an uncanny position: on the ground. Indeed, the starkest contrast between Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and skate is the most obvious one—the camera lies extremely low, making the skateboard (rather than the skater) the focus of the game. This visible paradigm shift is what makes skate such a great simulation. There’s a profound sense of essential physics from such a low perspective, including momentum, inertia, and weight.

The view from down below also helps skate look as incredible as it does, with highly complex character models, rich, deep color, sharply detailed texturing, and impressive lighting. There’s just something about skate’s low-lying wide-angle lens that allows it to capture the skyline magnificently. To be blunt, Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, due out later this year, is dimly lit and downright disappointing compared to skate. There are some frame rate hiccups here and there, but some cleverly applied motion blur makes skate one smooth ride.

Though the camera is the first thing players will notice when they pick up skate, the new control scheme will be nearly as shocking. Generally, skate’s on-screen skater moves throughout the city controlled tightly by the left stick. Jumping, though, is not controlled as one would expect. Instead of simply pressing A to make the skater jump like in Tony Hawk, all jumping and foot positioning is controlled by the right stick. To “ollie” (jump), players rear back on the stick and then push it directly up, as if making a “popping” motion. The skater will then jump based on how far down you pull the stick. Its simplicity belies its significance—players now have full analog control over their skaters’ feet.

But the system isn’t perfect. Since a single button press does not send your skater vaulting into the air like in Tony Hawk, the array of tricks at one’s disposal is also significantly more limited. The motions for a “kickflip” and a “shuvit” are nearly identical, differentiated by only a few degrees on the stick. Essentially, the right stick is a bit crowded. Although the amount of control offered to players is vast, the learning curve associated with the new system is pretty steep.

skate’s feature set is similarly expansive. In addition to the standard online and local multi-player, you can also capture any line of tricks with the game’s robust replay editor, called SKATE.reel, and then upload the video to EA’s Web site.

skate is an incredibly refreshing take on a genre monopolized by the now stagnant Tony Hawk. The graphics are fantastic and the controls are precise—perhaps a bit too precise in some cases, which often leads to some frustration. Still, there is little in gaming as rewarding as finally mastering the game’s complex controls and running a beautiful line—then e-mailing it to everyone on your contact list.