skate

For the better part of a decade, the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series has been the top dog of console skateboarding video games. Unfortunately for fans of the extreme sport, the series has gotten pretty stale in the past years, getting progressively more and more disappointing as time wears it down. However, there’s a new kid on the block, as EA is looking to enter the fray and take on the empire that Hawk built with their very own skateboarder, simply titled skate. skate. does things a little differently than THPS, tackling skateboarding with a more technical and realistic approach than the former. The game will utilize pretty much every button on the control pad, too, making skate. unlike any other skateboarding game you’ve ever played. Disillusioned Tony Hawk fans take note, this game could be right up your alley.

Graphically, skate. will be a very attractive game. It will feature near photo-realistic character models that have no doubt been mo-capped the crap out of, performing realistic and fluidly animated moves, and well-lit and detailed environments.

However, as pretty as the game is, it’s really not about graphics. The way the game handles is very jarring at first, if only because we’ve been weaned on the arcade-style mechanics of THPS. However, once you get the hang of it, it can feel closer to real skateboarding than ever. The game is fully analog, meaning that you’ll have to press down and then up on the right thumbstick to perform an ollie and then quickly tweak it in a direction in order to perform a flip trick. You’ll also have to control your feet individually with the face buttons, requiring you to rapidly press them in order to speed up and so on.

One other interesting option in skate. is the video upload option. You can record a video of a cool trick that you perform, upload it onto the EA server, and then watch it online at a Youtube-esque site, which in turn let’s others vote on the coolness of your trick, much like you can vote on a Youtube video.

skate. is looking like a solid skater, and one that very well could dispose the Birdman as the top dog of the skateboarding scene.