It's been a long time since I got caught up in a skateboarding game. The last one I became completely absorbed in was probably Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, for a couple of big reasons. First, it was the first game in the series to mark a radical change in design philosophy. Gone were the two-minute runs and compact, linear level designs of its predecessors. In their place were much more open environments in which to skate, and a completely reformed challenge system that allowed players to explore levels and tackle goals at their own pace instead of constantly racing against that 120-second timer. This design change was supported by a lot of minor refinements to the series' controls and mechanics, resulting in the 'flow' of the gameplay (for lack of a better word) coming as close to perfect as it had ever been and allowing players to rack up higher scores than ever before with relative ease.

The other major reason why I think THPS4 affected me so profoundly is that it arrived on the scene at a time when real-life skateboarding was beginning to experience a surge in popularity in and around my hometown. Classmates would bring skateboarding magazines and catalogues into school and look through them during morning break, while the older kids would take their boards to the streets after school (to the upset of pretty much everyone in town). Though it might be difficult to believe now, I got swept up in this subculture movement too. I had an awesome pair of DC shoes and a rather shitty board (probably shouldn't have spent all my allowance on the shoes, in retrospect), and I would skate up and down my road trying to nail various ollies, flips and shuv-its with my friends. When I couldn't skate outside, I would end up skating indoors thanks to THPS4. As a result, I ended up playing it a lot more than I probably would have done otherwise, and it became the franchise's magnum opus for me.

So that gives some insight as to why I hold Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 in such high regard. I've played skateboarding games since, but none of them have gripped me in the same way. I played quite a bit of Underground when it came out, and the PS2 version of American Wasteland a few years later, both of which were perfectly competent board-'em-ups, but neither really held the same charm for me as the series' fourth instalment. Truth be told, nothing came anywhere near close to it, until I played Skate last month.

I put about ten days into Skate, and in that time I managed to see what I imagine to be most of its core content - being as the game doesn't have a bona fide Career mode and no end credits, it's difficult to say. I managed to get on the cover of both Thrasher and the Skateboard Mag, tore shit up at the X Games, and met a host of professional skaters along the way (most of whom I then whooped in games of S.K.A.T.E.). After all of that, I actually had to force myself to stop playing and move onto something else, and it took pretty much every ounce of my willpower not to make that 'something else' Skate 2. I genuinely enjoyed it that much.

So how has Skate managed to dethrone Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 and claim the title of my favourite skateboarding game ever? Well, paradoxically, it's done it by being at once completely different and oddly similar to the Birdman's fourth outing. I'll start by pointing out the differences, since they're more immediately apparent. The most obvious is without a doubt the game's control system, which moves tricks away from the controller's face buttons and maps them onto the right stick. Moving the stick in different patterns and directions results in different tricks, tweaks and variations. This 'flick-it' control scheme took a lot of getting used to for me, and while it's far from flawless, it did ultimately feel like a better and more natural way of doing things than mashing combinations into the D-pad while holding down a face button. The fact it was a whole new learning experience, something the Tony Hawk series hadn't really been for me since the very first game, made landing every trick and nailing every line feel incredibly rewarding.

Skate also eschews the traditional level-based model of the Tony Hawk games in favour of a single, fully-open city for the player to explore. This brings with it an increased emphasis on exploration, encouraging the player to free-ride through the city of San Vanelona at their own pace and discover the best places to skate off their own back. It's a fantastic design choice that makes things feel a little more 'emergent' (sorry to bust out a marketing buzzword), especially when coupled with the game's video challenges that let you dictate which locations you want to attempt them in. There's a slight down-side to this, namely the loss of the sense of progress that a steady stream of unlocks brings, but Skate makes up for the lack of environmental progression by including unlockable 'zones' within the city that can't be skated until you move far enough through the career.

Weirdly, it's within these fundamental differences in design that Skate strikes parallels with THPS4 - because it successfully revitalises its genre through the changes it makes. The go-anywhere open-world design of San Vanelona reminds me of the feeling I got when I explored THPS4's larger levels for the first time, looking for spots to rack up points and seeking out challenge-givers hidden in the nooks and crannies of the gameworld. I was initially dubious about the 'flick-it' control scheme, but spending so much time with it has left me seriously doubting whether I'd ever be able to go back to the button-mashy combos of Tony Hawk. Skate innovates in meaningful ways, and those innovations improve the game. That's why I see a lot of what I loved about THPS4 in Skate, even though the two games play completely differently.

But above all this, there's one thing Skate does that the Tony Hawk series, for all its failed attempts, has never achieved - it manages to feel like real skating. Some people probably think I'm referring to the game's 'flick-it' controls, which are intended to approximate skaters' foot movements, but that's not what I'm getting at here. What I'm referring to is the fundamental 'flow' of the gameplay (there's that horrible abstract concept again). Remember how I talked about the 'flow' of THPS4 earlier, and said it was geared towards stringing together crazy combos to rack up massive points? It was certainly fun, but it never felt like real skateboarding - more an arcade-friendly approximation.

By contrast, Skate's 'flow' captures the ethos of real-life skateboarding. It drops you into this huge open city and lets you decide where to skate. When you do find a spot, the game's happy to let you tackle it however you see fit. It doesn't force lines on you, but encourages you to find them for yourself. When you do find a line you like the look of, chances are your first couple of attempts will be pitiful. You may fail and bail, many times over. But with repeated attempts, patience and diligence, your hard work will pay off and you'll come away with an amazing photo or some sick footage. That's what skateboarding is really all about, and it's what Skate's all about too.

At the top of this blog, I said that a big factor in why I loved Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 so much was that it came along at the right time. It supported the wave of popularity that skateboarding was riding at the time, supplemented it, and found a place in my heart in the process. Now, over a decade later, Skate has actually managed to do the complete opposite. It's managed to stir the still waters around me and generate a wave all of its own, a wave that I've started to ride with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. I never thought a video game would get me back on a skateboard for the first time in ten years, but Skate has done just that.

If you've stuck with the blog for this long, then thanks for reading. I appreciate it's a little on the long side and probably a bit rambly in spots. Truth is, this entry has gone through a number of drafts and taken me about five weeks to write, so hopefully the gestation period has been worth it and I haven't completely missed the original point I wanted to make. My next entry shouldn't take this long - it's likely to be about my time with the Final Mix edition of the original Kingdom Hearts, which I've just finished playing today. I'll soon be looking for something new to play - if you want to, feel free to check out my ever-growing Pile of Shame (now in two parts!) and recommend something to me. Once again, thanks very much for reading, take care, and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing - Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix (PS3)