Before delving into the body of this post, I feel I should state, for the record, that in the past I have had no interest whatsoever in skating or skating games. With that out of the way, I will freely admit, I am seriously enjoying it now.
About a week or so ago, I downloaded the demo of ‘Skate’ from the Playstation Store.
Usually I’m not into these games, as I specified above, but it got some rave reviews, my Brother has always liked them and what the hell, its free right? So off I went.
I then couldn’t put it down. It was a 25-30 minute timed demo with a bunch of technique challenges and tutorials. All set in a big ‘community centre’; a huge skate park. Since downloading, I’ve lost count the number of times I played it through. While there were moments of pure frustration (learning the analog stick sequence to perform a ‘Manual’, then flip-trick into it, hold it, then flip trick out of it was enough to make me almost put a hole through the wall. This was all compounded too when Kate managed to pick it up in like 2-3 minutes), as a whole, it was pure gold. Gold Jerry, gold!
Above all, I’m a bit of a sick bugger - so watching my skater take these massive spills off ramps, sliding along on his face for a good 5 metres, stuffing up a grind and landing sprawled over the bar on his back, dropping the board mid trick and landing with sick ‘crunches’ as bones broke had me in stitches. The stack sequences are hilarious.
It is one of those things you can play for 2 minutes, or 2 hours should the occasion call for it. It is incredibly versatile.
Yesterday, on sale for $79, I bought it. It even came with one of those little mini decks - interchangeable wheels and all that stuff. Bargain!
The full game is so much more impressive than the demo. Not only do you have access to many of these big ‘community centres’ or skate parks, but you have access to an entire city - San Vanelona. Nothing is off limits. You can skate anywhere and everywhere. Down the middle of the road (at your own peril - you WILL get hit by cars) in carparks, building rooftops, peoples front yards, their empty pools, water treatment facilities, industrial areas, gardens, libraries, art galleries… it goes on.
Some of these are ‘No skate zones’. This doesn’t mean however, that you can’t skate there - just that you’ll get in trouble for doing so. And doing enough of it will have Security Guards chasing you - if they manage to nab you, you’re fined (relieved) of $50 for your rebel actions.
Which brings us to the financial side. You start off fresh out of the hospital after a major skating accident (the opening movie is classic) with a few hundred bucks to your name. You can use this to buy clothes, customise your board, buy watches, sunglasses, etc.. it actually looks a bit like ‘The Sims’ when you create your skater. It’s very involved (I’ve just bought a skateboard with a black skull and cross-bones on yellow background. Cool!).
You get more money by participating in skate jams and if you do well in these, you’ll also get offers from fellow skaters to do photoshoots (special moves in front of skate shops, for friends etc) and some of these make it to magazine covers every once in a while. These earn you street cred and access to newer, tougher options, challenges and more dough.
Exploring is the key to this one. Skating around, you sometimes happen upon locations you can ‘own’. These can be massive man-made structures, that just happen to make awesome jumps (like the side wall of a water treatment plant or storm water drain) or carparks. They can also be as simple as a bunch of staircases and ramps. Immediately they pop up on your map and offer you the challenge - do a mad trick using all -or some of the required areas features and break the required points for the trick - and the area becomes ‘yours’. From then on out, you ‘own’ that area (’own’ in the sense of playing Starcraft and having your ass handed to you by a 13 year old opponent, his Zealots ravaging your base, only to have him type “I pwn joo”, not someone hands you a title deed to a bunch of staircases or something).
After said tricks earn you these areas, you get a replay. These are wicked. The replay system is brilliant - its got all the controls of modern video editing software. You can switch angles, set cut-ins and cut-outs, fast forward, rewind, slow-mo.. or push the analog sticks left or right to speed up/slow down the coverage. In addition, you can freeze-frame and take a photo of yourself busting a move, save it to the HDD for later access - even save and upload the video to the web for later viewing. It’s so easy to get lost in this thing. And you can bring it up at ANY time in the game.
Then there’s sponsorship. Once you start making a name for yourself, big-name skaters will start offering you challenges with new techniques, seemingly impossible drops and grinds that net you a deal with a sponsor. ‘Jump onto this ledge, into a manual, flip-trick out of said manual, gap into the street’. I had to look up what ‘gap’ meant. Some dudes skate shop was in the background of the photo, so immediately, he’s pleased with your advertisement and you get offered more challenges, cool clothes, boards etc.. everything is unlockable. Everything has a point - a cause and effect.
All this, about 5 hours of gaming thus spent, and I’ve not even touched on the ‘Freestyle’ mode, or Online modes.
For a game that’s just about skating around, it certainly manages to earn your money by packing in hours upon days upon months of replay value. I can feasibly see myself just skating around the city, not bothering myself with challenges and jams, just for the hell of it.
Utterly brilliant.
