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Creating a Spot With Skate 2

Added by Jeff Gerstmann on Dec. 8, 2008

43 comments

Electronic Arts held an event last week devoted to showing off its big release for January, Skate 2. With the game due out next month, it's probably pretty close to finished and so far, it looks pretty good.

The "grab the world" button lets you skitch a ride.

The new thing being shown at the event was the Create a Spot mode, which lets you duplicate a lot of the functionality of the franchise's Own the Spot mode. These are places around the world that simply have basic objects for you to trick off of, and you need to beat a set score to complete the challenge. Creating your own, however, lets you move around objects and set a precise scoring zone for the spot to let you configure the challenge in any way you see fit. After moving around ramps and creating a big, glowing box to designate where your spot is, you have to skate it yourself to set a score. From there, you can share the spot online and challenge friends to beat your score. Once your spot is online, it can be rated by other players much like the Skate Reel feature in the previous game. If you're looking to beat some created spots, you can sort by rating, and so on. Spots that don't see much use eventually expire, which should help ensure that there's some actual competition on the available spots.

Beyond that, I was able to just skate around New San Vanelona, the rebuilt version of the city from the first game. While you'll recognize some areas from the first game, like the Matrix Plaza, the old areas have been substantially redesigned. As someone who played an awful lot of the original game, it feels like a new, but still somehow familiar city. You'll also find some entirely new sections of town, like a waterfront, the projects, and San Van Mountain, which sounds like it'll let you gain ridiculous speed as you skate downhill.

Naturally, the game has some control changes that look to nearly double the amount of tricks in the game. Thankfully, these trick changes come in the form of modifiers and additional buttons, rather than just trying to cram more motions onto the already-crowded right stick. So you can use the kick buttons to work your feet into more tricks, the R1/RB button can be used for handplants, grabbing your board before trying to ollie performs bonelesses and beanplants, and so on. The additional trick controls feel really natural.

I have to say, I really appreciate EA's devotion to only releasing shots of this game that feature the fisheye lens.

The Thrasher Hall of Meat was a segment of the first game that showed you how badly you had messed yourself up when falling. It was pretty clever, but it stopped the action to show you, and it eventually gets in the way, especially in the slower-loading Wii game, Skate It. Now, your bails are converted into points and shown on a quick Hall of Meat pop-out score indicator. The developers on-hand said that those points would be useful for something in the game's career mode.

Add to that an already smooth-feeling 60 frames per second on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and you've got a pretty healthy-looking sequel. I voiced my concerns about some of the challenges in the first game requiring specificity that the right stick on a controller just wasn't made for and heard back that the career mode would be a bit more branched this time around to let players focus on something else when they get stuck on a challenge. While that doesn't seem like it will completely solve the problem, most of what I've seen so far has me pretty excited to see how the final product turns out. Expect it in stores on January 21.

Filed under : Skate 2

43 Comments

mudkip9000
on Dec. 8, 2008

I really liked skate 1. I'm a sucker for skateboarding games, and anything that deviates from Tony Hawk is fine by me.. So, naturally, I'm quite excited for this game.

TheGreatGuero
on Dec. 8, 2008

Sounds pretty good. I like the idea of creating your own spots, though I'm a little bothered by the fact that this game also takes place in San Vanelona. I didn't think it was that great of a city, but with the way they reworked it and added new areas, maybe I'll like it more the second time around. Hopefully the additional trick modifiers will help spice up the gameplay a bit more. I thought a lot of the more advanced tricks in Skate had some really unusual button combinations to try to accomodate of tricks that you could do with the analog stick and didn't feel very natural at all.

Pathos
on Dec. 8, 2008

I still have to pick up the first game!!

Armor42
on Dec. 8, 2008

I looooved skate., and I still play it regularly with friends or by myself just in free skate. I can't wait for skate 2.....

Scooper is online
on Dec. 8, 2008

I loved the original SKATE but I found that because of the camera it could be hard to line up specific grinds and things, does this game have the same problem, Jeff?

imayellowfellow
on Dec. 8, 2008

omg u can skitch!

Psynapse
on Dec. 8, 2008

Im in the middle of playing this game, i hate the recording feature, how you have to pick something to record, such as 'score 4000 points'... Some of them are stupid as hell... I don't think i'll pick up Skate 2, i think i'd rather the more arcadey feel to the tony hawk series. But i duno, if whoever reviews it gives it a 5/5 i might have a closer look.

Death_Burnout
on Dec. 8, 2008

I thought Skate was excellent, it was the kinda of realism that i love. Looking foward to Skate 2 thats for sure. Thankfully i was one of those who never had a trouble with the controls. I thought San Vanelona was really well designed, from what i've seen it looks even better!

crunchUK
on Dec. 8, 2008

i spent sooo many hours on the tony hawks 2 park editor thats for sure

TwoOneFive
on Dec. 8, 2008

cool dude, my brother can't wait to buy this, he's a big time skater dude (14 years old and has hair down to his shoulders)

ReTarDedFisHy
on Dec. 8, 2008

ReTarDedFisHy thought the first Skate was pretty cool, it was definitely the best skating game out there for him. He especially loved the flick-it controls. He's also glad to know that Skate 2 is just going to be better in almost every way including more tricks, customization and areas. But it's a shame that the character models didn't improve much, they look kinda bad.

DOUBLESHOCK
on Dec. 8, 2008

Can't wait

addictedtopinescent
on Dec. 8, 2008

The first skate was pretty good, this looks even better.

MrKlorox
on Dec. 8, 2008

I played the demo for the first skate well over 50 times, and I rented it once. That said, I'll be picking up Skate 2 within a month of it's release. I do that for maybe 4 games annually.

Virus
on Dec. 8, 2008

A nice addition would be a skate park level creator. Something more elaborate like the Far Cry 2 editor but obviously tailored to suit skateboarding.

jakob187
on Dec. 8, 2008

Hated the first game. I'm sure I won't warm up to this.

Media_Master
on Dec. 8, 2008

Great!

Froed
on Dec. 8, 2008

Bah, day before Darkfall. I'm so bitter!

sionweeks
on Dec. 8, 2008

Oh yes!

GalvanizedNails
on Dec. 8, 2008

I'm very intrested in this game, even though I haven't liked a skateboarding game since the original Tony Hawk. Its on my watch list for 09 for sure now

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