Skate. Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

Take a gentle ride with EA

skate. (lowercase letter and full stop intentional) is one EA's latest games and follows the recent trend in urban games that have been cropping up of late. Skate is essentially a challenge-based game with a few free levels to practice. There are 50 or so challenges in total as you aim to get on the cover of skater bible, Thrasher and earn plenty of endorsements along the way.

The graphics are quite impressive. The animation is smooth and there is some great background detail. It's horizontally scrolling and also has perspective layers of depth (Final Fight springs to mind). Levels consist of skating along linear lines and the design feels rather dated; we were expecting a more free roaming game at least with a few turns.

Of the 50 levels, the first few are straight tutorials. In fact most of the game feels like a tutorial as you try to learn the timings and names for all the stunts. The controls are actually pretty simple and not too tough to master. Pushing right will get you moving and push right again to go a bit faster (push in the opposite direction to slowdown and eventually turn around). Most of the tricks start off with an Ollie (simple jump to you and me). Once in the air, you can kickflip the board, spin around or move in mid-air to land on a fence and do some grinding. There are also specific grinding tricks and then there is also the quarter pipe where a few more tricks can be performed. Perform consecutive tricks and you can build up mulitpliers and raise your score. These combo lines are crucial to filling up your 'footy' bar. Press * when this bar is full and everything will go into slow motion giving you the chance to perform some crazy combos Matrix style. Some of levels include photographers snapping you while you bump and grind through the course. Unfortunately, these pictures are just for show and are never stored anywhere - I assume the full console version is heaped with mini video replays, etc.

Several skaters will lead you through the process of getting your mug on the front cover of the coveted Thrasher and this forms the basis of the challenges. The challenges themselves aren't too difficult, the trick is deciphering their skater speak and remembering the tricks. Don't be surprised if you get bogged down on one challenge and cannot figure out the secret. There is a decent help that can be accessed during the levels which should be of some assistance.

The overall pace of the game is a little slow compared to parkour games such as Playman Running Extreme. Skate is not going to give you the same adrenalin rush and is in fact a more skilful game than you might at first imagine. Having said that, it is all a little easy. Most of the levels have no time limit and you are free to crash as many times as you like while you perfect your timing. There is a stat section which keeps track of your longest line of tricks - to get a really long combo, just throw in a 'manual' now and again to keep the chain alive. There aren't any trophies to strive for either and the long term replay value is rather limited.

Whether the game is purely an incentive to purchase the full console version is unknown but I have a fair idea...