Giant Bomb Video Game News

The original skate--lowercase on purpose because it's the e.e. cummings of video games--was mechanically awesome. It turned the world of skateboarding games upside down with its compelling new control scheme and robust in-game video editor. The game design that was wrapped around those terrific mechanics, however, often didn't exploit the game's strengths properly. There are two specific examples I can think of that made me want to toss Skate (let's be mature about this name capitalization stuff for the rest of the article) into the street.

- The later, more difficult games of S.K.A.T.E. asked you to do very specific advanced tricks. Even though I was quite good at the rest of the game, I never felt that the right-stick's "flick it" trick system was specific enough to allow you to nail an exact trick at any given time. I eventually gave up on that challenge.

- Another was a specific Hall of Meat challenge. These asked you to find a way to bail properly and break a set amount of bones in the process. This particular challenge had you barrel down a hill at breakneck speed, then hit an incline and go flying into a tall tree, where you were supposed to break yourself up reeeeeallll baaaad. I think I did this for around two hours with absolutely no indication of what I was doing wrong. After two hours of flinging myself into this stupid tree, it suddenly rung up as successful, without anything that I was doing looking any different at all.

I think they call those "negative user experiences." Maybe someone out there got good enough with the right stick controls to nail every trick, every time. But after 20 hours or more with the game, shouldn't a reasonable person (which I often pretend to be) be able to do that sort of thing? Also, I'm sure that at least one of you got that tree goal on your first try... and for that I hate you.

My main worry about Skate 2, EA's full-fledged sequel, is that nothing will be done to avoid either of those situations. Since EA hasn't started talking about the goal structure, it's impossible to know for sure. But at the same time, the team at EA Black Box have made some really intelligent changes to the skating mechanics that make even the pre-alpha version of the game we were shown at a recent event look terrific.

The control changes are mostly enhancements of the existing controls, letting you do more stuff with the same buttons--specifically the foot buttons. You can work the two buttons used for kicking to involve your feet in various tricks. This allows for one-footed grinds, and so on. Hitting and releasing both kick buttons lets you perform hippie jumps, which is where you jump up in the air, off the skateboard, preferably allowing you to jump over a rail while your board rolls under it. If you hit a foot button right before landing, you'll pop a foot out, kick off the ground, and back up into the air a little bit, letting you do judo plants and stuff like that.

You can work your hands into more tricks, too. So if you're in the middle of a grind, you can hit one of the grab buttons to grab the board. If you're holding a grab button while trying to ollie, you'll perform a beanplant.

There's also a new button used in tricks, referred to as "grab the world." It's R1 on PS3 and RB on 360, and it's currently used to easily perform handplants. The developers say it'll be worked into other scenarios, but weren't too forthcoming on where else you'd be able to use it. You can combine handplants with the feet buttons to do one-footers and such.

The other big new thing that EA was showing off is the ability to get off your board, which made all of us a little wary, since that was one of those "beginning of the end" moves when it was introduced in the Tony Hawk series. Once off your board you can drop the skateboard anywhere you like, which doesn't currently factor into gameplay, but it sounds like you might be able to drop the board somewhere, run up, and jump onto it to start skating in the final game. Once off your board, you can start screwing around with the environment by moving around, as they stated, "anything that doesn't look bolted down." In the demo I saw, that included small ramps, picnic tables, and rails. This lets you set up your own lines. Hopefully the game doesn't turn into some kind of puzzle game where you're spending more time figuring out how to arrange parts than you are skating.

Other than the new gameplay stuff and the ability to create female skaters, EA isn't saying too much more about the game other than the basic setting. Skate 2 takes place five years after the original game. A disaster of some kind has hit San Vanelona and ripped most of it apart. You'll be able to skate the ripped up SV in the Wii game, Skate It. But Skate 2 takes place in New San Vanelona, which sounds sort of like New Detroit or Delta City or whatever in RoboCop. A corporation has come in and rebuilt the city, so most of it will look pristine and new. And the last thing they want is for some skater to come in and grind on it. So you can probably expect some sort of increased security force presence and a storyline that pits you against "The Man."

Visually, Skate 2 has a very similar look to the original game. The key difference is that the game will run at 60 frames per second on both the 360 and PS3. Both versions already appear to be well on their way to that goal, which should be a relief to PS3 players, who got a lower frame rate than their 360-based brethren last time around. The Skate Reel recording feature will return with some new things to play around with. Skate 2 will also contain a smattering of pro skaters, including Rob Dyrdek, Lucas Puig, and John Cardiel.

After playing it for myself, the enhancements to the trick system feel great and open up a whole new world of potential for connecting tricks and doing crazy stuff. Hopefully the game that gets wrapped around those tricks comes together just as well. Skate 2 currently doesn't have a release date beyond "when it's done," but considering how deep EA's holiday lineup already is and the lateness with which EA is showing off a pre-alpha version, it seems safe to assume we won't be seeing it this year.