One of the Best Skating Games Out There
Let me start off first by saying, I love skateboarding and I've always loved the videogames that are associated with it. I've played Tony Hawk for years now and once I picked up the game, Skate, I was deeply surprised. Skate completely changes the mechanics of skateboard games that I once knew. The right stick controls your board and the left stick controls your character. By flicking the right stick in various ways, you can pull off ollies, kickflips, nollies, and a large amount of other tricks. You use the left stick to move your character and to pull off spins and other such things. In order to grind a rail, you must hit the rail in the right way to slide across it. No button presses are needed to grind. All of these elements come together to make a very realistic skateboard sim.
The basic storyline starts out when your character is hit by a bus while on his board. Your character is taken to the hospital where you fill out information such as entering the name of your skater and altering his appearance. Then, you're ready to hit the streets again. Basic tutorials ensue and explain how to pull of tricks while you practice them to continue on. By completing missions, you also gain a certain amount of cash. This is used later on to buy more gear and clothes at the numerous skate shops.
Soon, you'll encounter missions related to the Skate Mag and Thrasher magazines. To push the story forward, you must fill up a meter by doing different missions and filming videos in order to make it to a photo shoot. After you complete a photo shoot, you must choose a photo to put in the magazine. Play continues along like this throughout the game and sponsor oppurtunities pop up along the way. By the end of the game, you should have a board, shoe, truck, and wheel sponsor. Other missions also pop up such as Pro Challenges where you can complete a certain challenge in order to unlock a character. There are also Spots, which are places where you have to beat a certain score in order to unlock them in free play and party play.
This game also includes a very functional online mode. You may take part in matches such as Own the Spot where you try to gain the most amount of points in a combo at a certain spot. There is also S.K.A.T.E which is like the game H.OR.S.E. Along with these online competetive matches, there is also Free Skate. You may pick from numerous locations to skate in and you can either join a public match, or a private match where you can invite your friends in. There is also something called Skate Messenger which shows your friends that are playing the game and tells you what they are doing whether it be playing Career Mode or playing an online match.
Even though my overall experience was great while playing through this game, there are many flaws that accompany it. There are many moments throughout the story that are very frustrating to get through and sometimes I felt like pulling my hair out. You bail very frequently and this also adds to some of the frustration during story missions. Because so many tricks are mapped to the right stick alone, it is sometimes hard to complete certain challenges that require you to do a specific trick. Mastery is key when it comes to some of the harder missions. Throughout the career, I have been left with nothing but videos to fill up my meter. A lot of the videos offered require you to complete certain tasks that seem impossible unless you know most of the trick list.
Even though there are many flaws to Skate, the amount of great things about it seem to balance out the experience. There were plenty of frustrating moments, but my love for the mechanics of the game seemed to lessen this frustration. With a price of $30 at this time, it should be something that any PS3 owner should get if they love skateboarding games.
