Skate

Skating it's way to victory on November 06, 2007

Tony Hawk has had hardly any competition in video game skating, as most skating games are rare. So Tony Hawk, happily skating along with its arcade joy with nothing in its way. Until now.

EA have now entered the world of skating Video Games. With there new game skate. This is no “Rip-off” of the Tony Hawk series. This brings a fresh start to a skating game, which is needed.

Story: 5 /10
Ok, there isn't a great deal of depth in the story. It starts out with you, being in a accident and having to work your way back up the ranks. You do this by getting coverage in the two skateboarding mags; Skateboard Mag and Thrasher. You do this through film challenges, photo challenges, death racing and specific tasks. Along the way you meet pro's who help you get sponsors, which ultimately give you more cash to spend. That's about it. Not much there, but reasonable.

Graphics: 9.5/ 10
The graphics in skate. Are just mind-blowing. It's a fairly large city, and it looks wonderful. Everything seems to scale. Your created character's expressions look nice and the clothes are detailed, move in time with what's going on. Overall your character moves and looks very nice. Although, the character models around you are repeated frequently. This sort of detracts from the overall look. The floor in different sections look like they should. Concrete has little dips and bumps in it, while marble is smooth and shines. The pro's look very similar to there real life counterparts. EA has produced a very lively, beautiful city. That's a pleasure to skate in.

Sound: 8/10

If it were a rating on just sound effects alone, this would be a 10, for sure. Everything sounds very realistic, the board makes different noises on different terrain. If a car passed by it would make a noise as it would in life. When you pick up speed sometimes the wheels become louder. When you perform an Ollie it makes a very nice “Ka-plunk” noise, as you take off and land it. If you kick flip, you can here it spin in the air. it's a very engrossing experience. But, the reason this is an 8/10, is because of the music. Its got some very nice soundtracks in it. But the same song is always repeated. But most of the time, there is no music at all. Only the sound of moving traffic. It detracts from the gaming experience on a whole.

Game play: 8.5/10

This is where the game out stands, and where its minor flaws are. The games control system really sets it apart from most sport titles. It has a control method similar to Fight Nights right analogue stick control. You feel alienated at first but soon get accustomed. You use the right analogue stick to perform all your tricks. To Ollie, you pull it back, and quickly push it forward. If you want to perform a flip trick, you push it down, and push it upwards but slightly to the left or right. Once you get used to this new control system, you wont want to mash buttons to perform 1,000,000 combo's. But the biggest flaw for some, is the camera angle. Yo