Buttery
You're walking down a hall, bars on either side. Evidently a jail. Professional skaters look on as you walk, the captured convicts, peering out at you as you pass them to your freedom. You walk along and out of the building, and it's done -- you're released. You've served your sentence and now here's a man waiting for you outside of prison, and the first thing he does is kicks you your skateboard back. You are now back in business.
It's been a while though, you're a little rusty. You've gotta cover the basics. Mess around in a lot on the way to a skate park, learn how to ollie using the flickit controls. The flickit controls utilize the two joysticks as the primary way of controlling your skater; the left stick serving as both your front foot and a steering stick, and the right stick serving as your back foot. By flicking the right stick in various manners you can perform tricks, including the ollies you must do en route to the skate park.
As you progress you come up to some stairs. There's no where in sight to get up otherwise, the stairs are the only way. That isn't a problem though. Since being imprisoned the citizens of San Vanelona have learned how to get off their boards, and so now you can too. By getting off your board and moving up the stairs in somewhat of an awkward, robotic way you soon find yourself right outside the skate park -- right in front of a garbage bin blocking the way. Conveniently, you've been lifting some weights in the pen as you can easily move the dumpster out of the way. Dumpsters aren't the only things you can move, either; rails, ramps, boxes and more are yours for the rearranging.
Finally you've arrived at the skate park, owned by your old friend Slappy. Slappy's brought some changes to his park, and his park isn't the only thing that's changed. You soon learn that San Van isn't exactly the same city it used to be. While core locations from before have remained, much of the city would appear to be redesigned… clearly a lot has happened since your imprisonment. Not only that, but the security is tighter too; the authorities really aren't taking a liking to you skateboarders and they've made sure to make it as difficult as possible to have your fun where they can be afforded to enforce the law (primarily Downtown.)
No issue though. Nothings gonna prevent you from skating the city. The security can be dealt with. You can call in a new friend to help you with them -- “Big Black”. The big guy will grab, tackle and crush any security that attempts to get in your way. And if there's skate caps on the ledge, preventing you from nailing that grind? Call up your buddy Mikey, he'll remove them for you in a flash. Of course, both Mikey and Big Black like pay for their services. Suppose you need to earn some cash first, huh?
Thankfully for you you're remembered, and there's plenty of people willing to work with you again. If you wanna make it big, you can hit up The Skateboard Mag or Thrasher for some photo shoots. Perform specific tricks on specific obstacles (tricky ones, normally) to provide sick photos that'll sell mags. Or maybe you're craving some street fun, some jam sessions. Just crash some bowls and parks with some other skaters and try to rack up more points than them in the allotted time. There's those crazy racer guys too, the ones tearing up The Res at high speeds that would send you rocketing off your board at the touch of a single pebble. You could always risk your life in the death races and compete against the crazies for the number one position in each race. What you earn out of it depends on what you put in, too -- all the funding is from you guys putting money in the pot, and the other dudes will match what you offer. Winner takes all!
So it won't take long for you to make some dough. What would you do with that dough? San Van isn't so skater friendly these days. It needs something for the skaters to shred… it needs another skate park. A massive one. A skate park that would do the skaters proud, a proper skate park that will bring in skaters from all around the world, just to feel the concrete beneath their wheels. Why don't you fund that skate park? That's a pretty good goal to work up to. You'd be doing San Van a lot of good with that kind of a skate park.
It really is a lot of money though. Maybe you aren't making enough progressing through your career. Maybe you need to hit up your buds from across the world for some competitive action. You're paid in each round after all. There's plenty of options for you to take with them. You could have spot battles, skating different spots and gearing to score the most points on them. You could skate some jam sessions, just hitting different places with a bunch of dudes and trying to outscore them on given obstacles. Or maybe you're crazy. Maybe you wanna race down the streets and pray you don't crash. It isn't as simple as it sounds either; see that fork coming up? Yeah, take the long way and ensure your speed is kept, or take the way with the cylinders and gaps and all that stuff that will do everything it can to make you bail. Of course, if you don't bail, well you'll have quite a lead on the other chumps.
Perhaps most noteworthy is a new game that you aren't so familiar with. The people of San Van are invincible. They will never die, and they all greatly enjoy pain. They're psychotic. Which is why it's so fun to attempt to bludgeon your body as brutally as possible by flinging yourself from ridiculous locations and crashing into as much stuff as possible. Try to break more bones and have a crazier ride that your bros, ‘cause you'll need the most Hall of Meat points to win the hospital bill.
What if money is no motive though? What if you don't care for photo shoots and jam sessions? You could always just skate. San Van is a beautiful, enormous city. From the peak of it lined top to bottom with cedars and lakes and parks, to the downhill bombs of The Res and the sharper streets of Old Town. Can't forget Downtown either, the tightest place in the city, also with the tightest security. With bowls, parks, steps, and city structures all waiting for you to skate them, San Van truly offers a deep, fulfilling ride. Feel free to capture the moment too; you'll skate everywhere with your good pal Giovanni Reda who's been with you ever since that accident with the bus, and he'll capture everything you do on footage. You can take that footage and do whatever you want with it, edit specific parts to highlight the sickest trick you did over that bench, and upload it for your friends to check out. You can just snap photos from the footage too, if you think it better captures the moment.
Now that you've gotten back into the heart of San Van, there really only seems to be one thing missing; film challenges. You can be sure to anticipate some minimal lines from the inevitable board sponsor of the future, but other than that? The challenges are no where to be seen. Those difficult, frustrating, road-block challenges that gave you a hard time building up your career the first time around. Are you even complaining? It isn't like the loss isn't remedied. Breaking bones online with your friends is fun, but you've got some bone breaking challenges to do in your career as well now. ‘Cause sometimes epic bails can be even better than the smoothest of lines.
What even is there to complain about? You're out of the pin, you're skating again! You can tackle your career head on or you can chill with your friends. You can show off your tricking skills in jam sessions or you can show off your speed in races. You can earn your money through conventional means or you can go online and earn it with some human competition. You can create your own skate footage and upload it for the world to see or you can create your own skate spots and upload them for other people to nail. You can ride along the beautiful scenery of the San Van Dam, water pouring through and sparkling in the sunlight. Or you can toss yourself off your board and into the dam, even though you don't know how to swim.
