Bailing just got a lot more fun
The first skate game would have considered a big experement for skateing games and proved that you can have a realistc skating game and not have to name Tony hawk on it to be succseful. Anyway now we have Skate 2 which is more or less the game with some pretty cool new features.
Skate 2 is pretty much like Skate 1. It looks a little sharper then the first (note i playing it on the PS3 and played the first on the 360) but everything feels the same meaning you could go from the first to the second and feel no real diffence in controls or even the look of the game which is fair enought. Its when you really get inside the game you start to see the diffences. It picks up pretty much where first game left off. You just got out of jail and its now time to hit the streets with your board , only problem is its seems the public of San Vanelona don't seem to really dig skaters and have made it as hard to skate as possible with more security guards then ever before, clamping rails makaing them impossible to grind and so on.
After leaving jail you create your skater and the first thing you notice is how many more options you have with him. Unlike the last game the create a skater has been improved a lot more and you can actully make a fairly decent looking skater. There a nice set of clothing items to choose as well . With that is the added feature or creating your own custom graphics, right now im using a giantbomb logo for my deck which looks pretty cool. The only problem is that you can't create them in game , you have to go to the website and created it then send it to your console. Its a little anoying because it didn't work the first couple of times and it would been better to have it inside the game but its no big deal.
Ive also notice that the map feels totally different as if it was a new city , I know there was a big earthquake or somthing but it might as well be a only different city. Missions are pretty much the same to , to progress you have to do events like photoshoots or contests, death races ect. The only problem is it isn't great at telling you how much you have progressed in the game and at some point i had no idea what to do cause the pro tasks were way to hard and there were no photo missions or anything. The whole map thing is'nt that great either cause like I said it can get pretty confusing where you have to go and what not.
The main thing about skate is just how hard it can get. some of the missions to a guy who never played skate 2 will just feel impossable and it makes you want to give up. Althought some them are fairly easy to do like for example. There one mission where you have to gap a street , now you can gap the street fairly easy but there no way to land it without breaking your legs , so your trying to find out why you can't do it. Now if you look at the place your landing there a small ramp, now if you place it right you be able to gap the street and use the ramp so you don't bail.
Carrying on from that note is that you can get off your board. the whole getting off sounds better then it actully is. The controls just don't feel right and i had a number of glitches with it send you flying in the air. The good thing you can do while off your board is move objects like ramps, rails, bins ect to create your own lines. As pointed out before you can use this to your advantage to compleate missions that from a first glance may seem impossable.
One of the great new features is the hall of meat mode. What you do is try to break as many different bones as you can to score big. Now here two way to go about it. the first is just normal bails so you know you made a mistake and you failing to the ground so why not try to make it hurt as much as you can to get some easy money. The second way is actully looking for places to bail. Like the dam where you can score massive damage. While its not really new or game changeing it is very fun the way they made it and the share feature is a good ever so you can upload and see who does the bails.
All in all it does feel like a good improvement to the first game, the controls feel more reposive and all it it does feel better. Here the thing thought To really enjoy skate your going have to put up with its pain in the arse diffcutly and because of this its not a game for every body, Skaters and Skateing fan will def enjoy it but to a guy who never played it or looking for some different to tony hawk then you might be dissapointed. So if you played the first a liked you really like this Skate 2 , if you played the first and hated it you most likely hate skate 2 even more. If you never played before then i recommend picking up the first game or trying the demo before you go swiming in the deep end. Even so its still a pretty rocking game
and I recommend it.
