Skate It

Posted 4 years ago By - Jay Acevedo

Whatever you like the sport or not, skateboarding has made us fantasize at least once in our lifes. People like Bucky Lasek, Steve Caballero and of course Tony Hawk popularized it to levels no one ever expected. After a few Tony Hawk games, the skateboarding genre saw a new franchise arise: Skate from Electronic Arts. And while the first game was well received, the fans of the series have been waiting for the real deal: a skateboarding game with motion controls. This is where Skate It, the first skateboarding game on the Nintendo Wii, sets its feet and once again, we can say that the skateboarding videogame genre will attain a new level of popularity. Here’s our review


Gameplay

Right off the bat, Skate It gives you the option to create your own skater and customize his looks the way you want it followed by nice and complete tutorial that will show you how to control your avatar with the help of three different control schemes: Wii Remote only, Wii Remote and Nunchuk and of course, Wii Remote and Balance Board. While the Wii Remote/Nunchuk is probably the best and most reliable control scheme in the game, the use of the Balance Board (if you have one) will bring a sense of realism far more interesting. But beware, even if it’s fun, the Balance Board control scheme is very difficult and not as responsive as you might expect. You can calibrate the Balance Board in order to graduate it’s sensitivity but it doesn’t change much as you will end up doing tricks that you don’t necessarily want or steer in a unwanted direction. The choice of having three control schemes is very interesting and welcomed but the real thing resides into the Balance Board controls. They can be mastered but it will require you patience and lots of practice. Personally, I liked the challenge the Board controls offered but I’ve end up playing more often with the Wii Remote/Nunchuk combination after a while…and then come back with the Balance Board. It’s just fun to actually move like with the real skateboard, it’s more immersive and reminded me a lot of the old Top Skater arcade game but the overall experience is daunting. Regardless of which control scheme you pick though, Skate It delivers the fun factor.


In order to push the experience even further, three modes are given to you: Career, Party Play and FreeSkate. While FreeSkate will serve as nothing more than your training headquarters, the Career and Party Play mode are the places where your Skate It experience will be. The Career mode will take you on different locations around the world in order to compete against other skaters and complete the various challenges scattered around different parts of the world. By completing these challenges, you will gain access to a unique sponsor who will provide you with new boards, clothing and other accessories. While some may find the way to go through the Career mode rather quickly, its important to point out that the longevity of your career will depend on how skilled you are and how fast you can adapt to the more difficult Balance Board control scheme, if you indeed decide to use it. Nonetheless, the career mode will keep you busy and entertained long enough. While you can challenge yourself at being the best skater the world has ever seen, you can also compete with friends through various mini-games found beneath Party Play. Skill mini-games like Best Line, Best Trick and Hall of Meat can be played with up to four players. Sad part is that you have to play with one set of controllers as the game forces each player to pass along the controls.


Graphics & Sounds

As we all know, the Wii isn’t capable of breathtaking graphics like on the PS3 or Xbox 360 but surprisingly, Skate It looks nice overall. Not great but just enough to get you by. The game offers a mixed bag of nice and crisp menus and detailed character customization but poor animations and lackluster location rendering. Still, this game is the perfect example of putting the emphasis on gameplay rather than having an excellent looking game with broken controls. So yes, the game has an overall look and it won’t blow you away but then again, I’ve seen worst graphics on the Wii. Trust me on that.


On the other side, while the graphics don’t surprise, the audio in the game is very good. Everything from the eclectic soundtrack to the nice environmental and skateboarding effects are standouts as they put you in the mood for skateboarding, even if it’s virtually. The only negative I can pull out is the annoying camera dude that is hanging out with you as he keeps throwing poorly-scripted muffled lines at you whenever you’re doing something great or not.

Value

With an extensive career mode, a fun Party Mode and a decent amount of challenges and venues to unlock, Skate It will keep you busy for a while, especially if you really get through the complexity of its controls. Of course, your patience will be put to the test but in the end, the pay-off is rather interesting. And if you got your hands on the precious Balance Board, you will actually find the game even more pleasing as it will not only multiply your fun level by two but also your body will thank you for the quick and easy training session.

Conclusion

Even if Skate It isn’t the perfect skateboarding game, EA has delivered a solid game on a system that definitely needs innovation and something else than just dumb mini-games. While the Balance Board isn’t fully responsive, it will be interesting to see where EA will go from here as they definitely have something cool going on. And to say that not long ago, Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime said that third party publishers didn’t understood Wii gamers. I think he just got served right here.

Verdict: While the game has a daunting learning curve and some average graphics, the game is worth checking out as it will find a nice and warm place in your Wii game collection.

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