Skate 2

...and still champion.

Posted 4 years ago By - Zach R.

Just over a year or so ago, EA’s Black Box came along kicking Tony Hawk’s franchise off its high horse and bringing about a true challenge to the largely uncontested king of the extreme sports genre. While the game wasn’t quite perfect, it proved to be a breath of fresh air from the annual phoned-in games the Hawk franchise has been putting out for years. With fresh controls and some challenging tasks, EA’s newest addition to the extreme sports genre came out of left field and nailed it nicely the first time around. Not one to let sleeping dogs lie for long, EA is back with Skate 2. Are the new features and improvements enough to warrant another trip to San Vanelona? Let’s see.


Gameplay

The game takes place approximately five years after Skate, just as you’re being released from prison...don’t ask. After returning to San Vanelona you’ll find that a major natural disaster has altered the face of the city. The evil Mongocorp has reconstructed the city into a skaters paradise, though that’s obviously not their intention as evidenced by the numerous security guards ready to take you down if you get to close to their property. The story here is pretty much just a way to introduce you back into the world of Skate, and it does a serviceable job. After about an hour or two though, there isn’t really much to it and the gameplay takes over the reigns, which by no means is a bad thing. After all, you don’t go to the skate park to hear a story, do you?

For anyone who played the first game, the controls should make you feel right at home; little has actually changed aside from the welcome addition of plants to the mix. Similar to the first game, jumps and flips are primarly handled by the right analog stick, with the triggers acting as your arms. Pushing down the left trigger will prompt your left arm to do a grab or plant, and obviously the right trigger does the same for your right arm. It’s a simple system but offers an incredible amount of depth.  

Now, if this is your first foray into the world of Skate, allow me to take a minute to console you here...you’re not alone, and you’ll eventually get the hang of it. Yes, for first timers this is going to be a frustrating experience, especially if you’re used to the other skateboarding titles out there. Skate’s physics system is a far cry from the Hawk series, and that’s one reason why you’ve got to respect this game. It’s grounded in realism a lot more than the arcade-y thrills of its competitor. Because the tricks and physics are more realistic this means gravity will come into play a lot sooner and harder than you may be used to. Like I said, you’ll eventually get the hang of it, but just be warned that you will likely experience some frustrations in the beginning until you find your groove.

Never let it be said that newcomers will be the only ones to experience frustrating moments however. While the analog system is a fairly solid idea in general, using one stick to perform a number of tricks is difficult to pull off. The reason for this is that so many moves have similar motions, and unless you’re extremely accurate you’re likely to mess up more than a few of the more difficult tricks, even some of the simpler ones. This can mean the difference between passing a game of S.K.A.T.E. and failing. The more complex a move is, the worse the problem becomes; however, that’s not to say that this is a game-breaker by any means. Once you’ve mastered the intricate nature of the controls, you’re not likely to have this problem very often, but it’s disappointing to see that while they upped the number of tricks, they haven’t really upped the number of ways to perform them.


Obviously you can’t make a sequel without offering something new (at least you shouldn’t, anyway). Black Box has added an interesting new feature indeed: the ability to move around your environment on foot and actually manipulate your surroundings. Unfortunately, the feature sounds better than it actually is. Maneuvering around your environment on foot feels awkward because you can’t take a step back, at all. Maybe I’ve taken my ability to take a step backwards for granted all these years, because not being able to take one step back here really made the ’on foot’ portion difficult and uncomfortable. It’s even more frustrating to find that you can drag items backward but can’t take that one step back when you’re just roaming the world without rotating yourself 180 degrees. The actual ability to setup your own lines is pretty slick, but be prepared to feel the frustration if you accidentally hit a rail wrong, as this will destroy the perfect line that you may have spent a while creating. It’s even more frustrating if one of the AI skaters tries to hit it and knocks it out of place. A true level editor would have been a good way to solve this particular hassle, and having the ability to nail down items that shouldn’t move at all would have been really nice. Unfortunately, that’s not to be this time around. Still, the ability to drag items around to create sweet jumps and grinds is pretty cool, even if it the execution is a bit of a pain.

The single player offering is what you’d expect, as it’s virtually the same as the previous game. Go around, complete challenges from other skaters, faceoff against a few pros, and do a few photo shoots for some magazines. There’s no way to adjust the difficulty here which means your skill is really the deciding factor as to whether you progress or not. Being that the game is grounded in realism it’s nice to see that they left the stats out of it, but for those of you who aren’t willing to learn the sophisticated nature of the trick system, you’re going to find very little in Skate 2 for you to do. This definitely is not a game you can blow through without putting in some decent time honing your skills.

One downfall is that regardless of how good you are, the AI during single player will make things extremely difficult for you. That’s right, the AI from the previous game is back, and you’ll often find yourself crashing into other skaters who seem oblivious to you during challenges or even freeskates. The sheer incompetence of these idiotic, half-baked, AI-controlled players is mind-blowing. It’s even more painful during team challenges. The AI controlled teammates will more often than not crash into each other and make it almost impossible for you to get a decent line score. Thankfully you don’t have too many challenges that require you to team up with anyone, but when you do, they’re frustrating enough that you’ll certainly wish you could pick up your board and beat some sense into your teammates with it. (Disclaimer: I don’t condone violence of any kind except within a videogame, so kids, don’t beat your friends with boards for the love of Pete.)

Thankfully, there is an escape from the braindead AI. Skate 2 offers some great multiplayer challenges both online and off, and accessing the online couldn’t be simpler. Feel like taking a break from the solo mode? With the click of the Back button, you can jump online and compete in races, trick challenges, and the ever popular Hall of Meat, where you see who can hurt themselves the worst during a bail. All of the online challenges are fairly similar to the offline mode, but getting six friends online and performing some awesome team challenges is entirely rewarding, and definitely easier than relying on the AI.

Offline multiplayer (called Party Play) is also offered, and again these are basically the same challenges you’d find in the main story mode. The one drawback is that there’s no split-screen play at all, however that’s understandable for certain games, such as S.K.A.T.E. Still, it would have been nice to have the option in the trick competitions or Hall of Meat challenges. That said, it’s a minor gripe considering how vastly improved the multiplayer is over the first Skate’s.

Graphics and Sound

Skate 2’s look is similar to that of the first game, though with a bit more polish this time around. The city looks great, and the skaters move fluidly thoughout it. Character models look good and move well enough while on their boards, but animations while off are stiff and ugly, so you may want to remain on your board as much as possible to keep the game looking its best.

The sound is as you’d expect from the extreme sports genre...there’s a good mix of punk (The Clash), metal (Motorhead) , and hip hop (Nas), as well as some other eclectic choices that may not be expected (Sam & Dave’s Hold On, I’m Coming), but are welcome nonetheless. The voice-acting is the same as it was in the previous game, which means your still going ot hear your friend with the camera make the same lame comments every time you fall off your board or perform a sick trick. My advice, just turn down the volume in the settings menu and listen to the soundtrack, which is much more satisfying.


Value

If you’ve already played the first Skate to death, the new features here should be enough to hook you for another go, especially since there are more tricks to master. If you’re new to the franchise but worry that you may have missed something by not having experienced the first game, rest assured that this is easily recommended far more over it’s predecessor, in spite of its minor faults. Mastering the trick system, completing challenges, and playing the addictive online mode should keep most players happy for quite some time. Just be warned, if you lack the patience to learn the intricacies involved in the trick system, you may want to look elsewhere for your extreme sports fix.

Conclusion

If you’re new to the series and are looking for a good point to dive in, this is definitely it. The challenge is relatively the same as the previous offering but with Skate 2 you’ll be getting a more complete experience. For veterans, you’ll probably still be hooked thanks to the new features, but you won’t be able to shake the feeling that a bit more time could have been spent in order to make the game just that much better. All said, Skate 2 does take the crown for being the best boarding game on the market, but feels less like a sequel and more like an upgrade to the original game.

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