Skate 2 Review

Title: Skate 2
Available Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Distributor: Electronic Arts South Africa
Genre: Sport
Age Rating: 16+

Review By: Miktar Dracon | NAG Magazine (April 2009)

AS FANS OF THE first game could tell you, there was very little that Skate did wrong. As a wonderful disruption to a stale Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater-dominated genre, Skate brought with it a fresh and completely functional new way of interfacing with your skateboard, along with a handful of cultural tropes such as the fish-eye lens view of the world, a more down-to-earth approach to the act of skateboarding, and an overall sense of personal achievement when actually pulling off a difficult trick.

If anything, there were only a handful of issues Skate 2 needed to address to instantly be everything a fan would want from the sequel. Being able to get off your skateboard was one, which Skate 2 provides. Moving around on foot is a bit clumsy, but dragging around objects to create your own lines for tricking off is remarkably easy. The other issue was a lack of hand-plant tricks on the edges of ramps. Here again, the sequel delivers and even keeps it all logical within the context of the control scheme that Skate innovated. Beyond that, all one could hope for is better visuals, more tricks to attempt, more areas to explore and more events to participate in. Skate 2 is all that, and then some.

Welcome back to San Vanelona, which is now shiny New San Vanelona, as the city has been rebuilt after a natural disaster and given a visual facelift. The city itself comes across as much more realistic now. There's also been some attention given to the skater model, which can now bruise and bleed if you're not careful (though, this doesn't influence ability in any way, and the visual damage fades over time). This new and improved city is huge: roughly four times as big as the map from Skate, four times as detailed and with far less 'dead space' between key areas (so you won't see as many featureless low-detail passages between suburbs or city areas). There is a bigger variety in the pedestrians walking around (who still get in your way when you least expect it and even throw things at you ineffectually), more types of cars driving around (which you can hang onto, 'skitching' your way around the city) and plenty of highly detailed skate parks dotted around the city.

Each skate park (six being available initially) is unique in appearance, texture and appeal. You could spend hours in just one, learning high-scoring lines or attempting wicked technical feats such as doing foot-plant jumps over gaps. You don't even need to explore the city to reach these skate parks or any of the other locations of interest, as Skate 2 dispenses with the Subway system from the first game. The entire ‘Challenge Map’ of the city is open from the start, and you can select where to teleport to from a list of subdivided-by-category items. This doesn't remove the element of exploration, however, as there is a lot to discover for yourself in between teleport locations. Plot progression adds new items to the list, while a quirky in-game ‘blog’ updates with tales of your exploits.

Some things in the city do need to be adjusted to make them more navigable on a skateboard, which is where the Services menu on your in-game cell phone comes in. You can spend your cash on new clothing, decks and accessories or on these new Services. These including draining pools, hiring Big Black as muscle to keep guards in check while you trick in protected areas, or getting a guy with a crowbar to come remove anti-skateboarding clamps from rails. Often, new events are tied to these adjustments of the city.

Being able to get off your board and walk around does a lot for finding new areas to explore, letting you reach rooftops, climb up stairs and generally helps with assessing an area more calmly since you're not constantly trying to avoid falling. There are a few things tied to this new functionality: the first is that you can now mess up a trick and not bail since you simply land on your feet. For example, if you attempt a kick flip onto a ledge but you time it wrong and the board hits the edge, there's a good chance your skater will just land on his feet on the ledge. There is an added sense of realism to tricks now, since you're not inexorably tied to the fate of your skateboard.

As mentioned before, walking around also lets you drag objects around to tailor a spot. You can save your newly created spot and upload it via the Create-A-Spot feature, which is a meta-game all on its own. You set a score on your Created Spot, upload it and your friends and the general Skate 2 public can try to best your score. Each Created Spot maintains its own high-score list, and you can watch a ghost replay of whoever currently ‘owns’ the spot by having the highest score on it. You browse Created Spots via the in-game browser. Downloading Spots places them in your city and in the Challenge Map list so you can teleport to them.

The final part of not being tethered to your board is the range of new tricks available. Skate 2 has almost four times as many tricks as its predecessor. While in the air, you can now finger flip your board by grabbing hold of it and flicking it in a direction. Hippie Jumps involve jumping over obstacles while your board goes under them (you can switch your stance by turning your body in mid-air while hippy jumping), and as noted earlier, you can lip-trick on edges. There's too much to list here, actually. All the new tricks keep in line with the ‘natural’ feel of the control scheme, making them incredibly easy to learn, yet retaining that element of mastery needed to execute them without disastrous results.

Even the disasters have been made into a more integral part of the experience, as bails form part of the Hall of Meat metagame where you complete objectives the more you mangle yourself, earning cash from it. You can bail on command, pull off various poses while free falling in an attempt to break specific bones, or rack up enough damage with your mangled crunchy mess of a skater. It's as if they thought of everything.

You will find more Skate 2 screenshots in our Skate 2 Screenshots gallery.