Skate 2 Review
By Dana Vinson - Posted Jan 22, 2009In this X-Play review, we take a look at 'Skate 2' for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The Pros
- Still the best skateboarding game on the market

- Tons of events, challenges and places to discover

- Great community features

The Cons
- Essentially a prettier, slightly updated version of the original

- New off-board controls are stiff and frustrating
Sequels are a funny thing. Either people are so uproariously happy to have another chance to explore a particular game world in an all-new adventure that they are willing to overlook the lack of any significant changes from the previous title. Or they feel cheated if the newest iteration doesn’t offer enough measurable advances to the series to warrant another $60 purchase. So does Skate 2 do enough to keep the series’ momentum going forward, or will the weight of its revolutionary predecessor keep it from reaching new heights in the genre?
Welcome to the New San Vanelona
In the wake of a devastating earthquake, the fictional city of San Vanelona is rebuilt and redesigned into an anti-skater metropolis (cleverly named New San Vanelona) by a buzz-kill corporation known as Mongo Corp. Basically, this just means that some spots around the city have beefed up security that you will have to avoid, and particularly sweet grind spots have been outfitted with metal notches to prevent any anti-societal funny business from transpiring. However, these obstacles end up being temporary inconveniences thanks to a series of unlockable friends that you will encounter over the course of the game (These friends will also help with things like draining pools and distracting security guards).
The city itself is as massive as ever and offers tons of varying environments to shred through, down, across and pretty much anyway you please. From lush mountain roads to the somewhat bustling financial district to historic neighborhoods to schoolyards and office parks, the city stretches out before you and begs you to skate across any and everything you find. Of course, if you’d rather forgo the whole skating from one event to the next bit, the game features a much tighter quick travel system than the first game. Instead of dumping you off at the nearest subway station, this time you fast travel within feet of a particular challenge or event. It’s not that big of a deal since the people who enjoy traveling exclusively by board can still do it, while people who just want to get on with the next challenge without any added travel time can now do that as well.
I Live the Skate Life
Similar to its predecessor, the career mode starts with you customizing your character (who has recently been released from jail), and then starting the long painful journey back to the top of the skating world. Along the way, you’ll compete in a number of events and challenges to earn cash and raise your reputation. It’s a great formula that once again succeeds at giving you a sense of accomplishment without ever feeling overbearing or repetitive. This also has a lot to do with the sheer amount and variety of things to do. In addition to participating in photo/video sessions for Thrasher and Skate magazine, you’ll also compete in tournaments and races, take on pro skaters in various challenges, win sponsorship deals, buy property/unlock new add-ons to various locations, set hi-scores on a number of specific spots around the city, and so on. You can also set up your own trick spots and share it with friends online to see who can top your score. And the best part is you will always have dozens of activities to choose from, which means you won’t have to waste your time wandering around and waiting for things to unlock.
If it’s pain you’re after, the game’s Thrasher Hall of Meat feature will certainly satisfy. Every bone snapping, head cracking, spine shattering, leg mangling fall you take in the game is tracked and assigned a score based on its severity. There are also a number of in-game achievements as well as general achievements and trophies assigned to particular injuries (break both hands, break a certain number of bones, etc.), which is a great way to encourage people to try and perform as many brutal falls as possible. You’ll also have a lot of help from the citizens of New San Van, who drive around like octogenarians through a farmer’s market. There’s nothing quite like being run down in cold blood and watching your lifeless body catapult into the air in front of dozens of witnesses, who simply go about their day despite the horror that just unfolded before their eyes. It just never gets old and is always cringe inducing.
If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Flickit
As we are all well aware, Skate revolutionized skating games by stripping away all of the overcomplicated and unnatural control schemes that had been the genre standard forever. In its place came an elegant, simple and logical control scheme that helped make Skate arguably the greatest skating game ever made. By not changing anything in terms of the core control mechanics (left stick for body control, right stick for board control, shoulder buttons for grabs), and by filling out the roster of available tricks and moves, the developers at Black Box have managed to pass on this prestigious distinction to Skate 2.There are also particular challenges that can be a bit annoying since they require you to perform a series of tricks in order to succeed. These challenges can often be a bit more frustrating that they need to be, since messing up the last trick by just a fraction of an inch means you’ll have to perform all of the tricks again. This will be a more than welcomed challenge for fans of the series, but newcomers can easily get bottlenecked at certain points, which sort of defeat the game’s goal of being intuitive enough for anyone to pick up and play.
…One Giant Leap for Skater-kind
The most obvious new feature this time around is the ability to get off your board, walk around and manipulate certain objects in the world (dumpsters, benches, ramps, etc.). It’s a logical feature that fills in a much needed piece of realism that was missing from the first game. Unfortunately, when it’s put into motion, it’s pretty disappointing. Compared to the fluid skating controls, walking around feels like a cement shoe simulator. And the camera does nothing to help this, since simultaneously walking and moving the camera oftentimes can’t be done without some serious finagling of the controls. It just seems to take forever for your character to start walking, and changing direction only multiplies that frustration, since you’ll often have to stop moving entirely before you can move left or right.
Thankfully, the object manipulation is well done. You just walk up to whatever you want to move, grab it and position it exactly the way you want it wherever you want. Depending on where you put the objects, they will generally remain there, even if you leave the area. This is especially useful when using the game’s travel marker feature, which lets you designate a specific spot that you can quickly warp to from anywhere. Many challenges with require you to pull off a trick at or on a specific location, so rather than having to physically skate all the way back to the starting point and reposition the object required for the trick, you can just jump back to the travel marker and have another go. It’s a great way to prevent yourself from going backtrack crazy, especially during challenges that involve particularly elaborate tricks.
Skate Together or Trick Alone
When you’ve had enough of impressing yourself with your skating prowess, it’s time to check out the game’s many community features. In addition to being able to once again record, edit and post in-game videos (minus the film effects feature from the first game), there are also a number of local and online challenges waiting for you. Online play is handled like most open world games, in that you pick one of the dozen or so locations around the city and travel around to find other players. Each location has a number of challenges that can only be completed with multiple players online, and you can also compete locally with up to four friends in hi-score competitions (including a biggest wipeout event) and the trick-matching S.K.A.T.E. It is super easy to jump in and out of games, and the online features add even more replayability to a game that’s already filled to the brim with stuff to do.Skate 1.75
While it’s basically just a more polished version of the first game with a few additions here and there, Skate 2 is easily the best skating game on the market. The city is massive, the trick system still feels like butter on wheels, there are endless challenges, events and places to discover, and the online features are plentiful. It would have been nice to have seen a truly new city, more fluid off-board controls and maybe a more engaging narrative, but in terms of giving players plenty of skating bang for their bucks while being consistently fun and satisfying, Skate 2 is a worthy addition to any library, especially for anyone who missed the first ride.
Comments
Add a Comment