NIDZUMI+

Skateboarding in games has always had it’s fair share of ups and downs. One minute your getting air off a bowl and performing nice looking flip tricks while a few minutes later your stuck being frustrated by seemingly impossible goals. The original Skate took a completely different approach by making it as close to real life skating as they could. Combined with the innovative flick it control system the game became well known within fans of the genre and almost instantaneously knocking the king, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater off it’s throne. But it was far from perfect with it’s annoyingly jerky physics, lack of walking and technical issues through the roof and now the Blackbox team are taking another shot at it with the aptly named Skate 2.

This time the game takes place in New San Vanalona which is a partly rebuilt city featuring the same rough layout and buildings from the original but mainly the city feels fresh and exciting while still feeling slightly familiar. Although it has to be said that last time around they did a better job of making it feel less like skate city despite this it’s still a long way off Tony Hawks. At one point you can start to skate around a boat which feels all to similar to the Pro Skater series, we just hope that the game sticks to it’s roots in the future.

You partake in numerous challenges that range from hitting a select trick over a gap for a photo shoot to entering street or vert contests. Like the original Skate 2 really excels in a great variation of challenges and goals for you to play though. Although there are possibly more challenges you will go through them quicker if you are a veteran of the series due to the lack of learning the controls from scratch.

Speaking of controls they are still the immensely engaging flick it controls only they’ve been slightly refined. They aren’t up to the level we would like as you still can’t hit a trick you want every time but this easily beats any alternative. This time we do see a few new tricks added on like Handplants, Fingerflips, Hippy Jumps and more. Some of them integrate well into the great control scheme the game has yet some seem tacked on and way too complex to pull off. It seems harsh that people jumping in for the first time will have to learn these new controls as well as the basics which are hard to master as it is. When you consider the lack of real tutorials given at the start combined with the way the game ramps up, it doesn’t appear to be very accessible at all.

Another addition is the fact you can get off the board and walk places. Anyone who played the original will know how frustrating the game can get when you’re trying to get up a curb only to fall flat on your face. Although I love the fact I can walk up stairs I don’t love the way it controls. You really do feel like your controlling a tank around a city and it just seems rushed and lazy design by the developers. Still insanely awkward walking off your board is better than nothing.

While off your board you can also move objects around the level such as ramps and rails. These give you a little bit more customization while free skating but is far from creating your own parks. Saying that we like what they’ve done with this feature it allows you to skate a spot for a while then mix it up with various items that are near by. Although we would like to see an option to buy and get delivered a specific object to an area. Countless times have I been caught thinking if only I had a rail here without the access to a near by rail.

The games visual style is true to the skate culture complete with a fish-eye lens and all the hard to find skate brands associated. The game also boasts a smooth looking 60 frames per second that apparently holds up really well on the Xbox 360 version of the game. I say this because we played the Playstation 3 version and that was less than ideal. The frame rate would fluctuate between the smooth sixty promised to a notable dip to twenty. Normally this could be forgiven but in a game but in a game were timing is everything it’s enough to put you off. Otherwise the game looks a lot better than the original with a much needed flood of colour that seemed to briefly appear in the mainly desaturated Skate 1.

As far as the online works it takes some clear influences from the Burnout series. The drop in and drop out freeskate is a worthy addition that is brilliant to just play with friends. Meanwhile they also have great multiplayer challenges also akin to the ones seen in Burnout. You can also mark off areas of the city and upload them online in the create-a-spot mode. You can then bust a trick out on it and upload your score online then others can try and beat it. It’s a really good system that will help people find every nook and cranny of the massive city while adding a lot of life to the game.

The truth is that a majority of Skate 2 is brilliant. They’ve added some welcome improvements to the game and it’s really nice to see a sequel to the game that left you thinking ‘Skate 2 will be great’. Despite this the game does let it’s self down at some points. Some challenges, not all, make you wait needlessly to try it again. The game does a great job of making you try and try again until you hit something which is similar to real skating and we love that. But when you make us wait 10 seconds between a retry due to menus and pointless countdowns you just end up feeling frustrated. Especially when you could have had a few more cracks at it in that time.

The games interface also gets in the way of the replay editor. Which last year was a brilliant feature that had us looking at every smoothly landed gap or trick we landed. This time we seem to have half the editor with confusing button combinations and maze like menu systems. Once you’ve got it mastered its fine but the mastering should be of a trick not of a menu system. It seems way to hard just to place a camera in a certain space. Also the filter effects, that were included in the game last year are now been excluded and saved for extra downloadable content, it just comes off as shameful especially to have a note saying ‘Download the Filmer Pack’ were they should be.

Skate 2 is made up of loads of little annoyances here and there. When you are just freeskating or exploring Skate 2 easily becomes the best skateboarding game ever. But when you’re stuck in a challenge with crazy button combinations for tricks and a poor interface it becomes one of the most frustrating games I’ve ever played. Despite that for every frustrating annoyance seen in Skate 2 there are loads of brilliant and exciting moments and that’s why we love the game. It’s all about the pay off for completing a challenge or hitting that laser flip to a tail grind the way you wanted too and that’s easily worth fighting through the simply minor flaws.