I, initially, wasn't too excited about skate. (why is the punctuation of it so stupid?). I've always been a huge fan of the Tony Hawk games, even when everyone else had forgotten them. I've played through them all, and have only recently started getting a little bored of the formula and kinda wishing they'd update them a bit.As it's pretty obvious that Neversoft have NO intention of updating their franchise, it's fallen upon EA to bring something new to the world of skating videogames. So, we have skate.
The demo went up a couple of days ago and I'm pretty much hooked. The important thing to know about this game is that you have to forget EVERYTHING you've got memorised from the Tony Hawks games and, literally, re-learn how to skate. Ollies and flip-tricks are all achieved using just the right stick. It seems like a really bizarre thing to get to grips with at first, especially if you've got in implanted in your brain to use a button to do all these things. But it just works. With one tiny change in control, EA have managed to not only revolutionize the way we should approach skating games, but to bring a control system that feels natural, realistic and, most importantly, extremely playable. Sure, you'll bail over and over again, at first. But then it kinda clicks and you'll, guaranteed, have the most fun since you played your first Tony Hawks, 1080, Cool Boarders, whatever...
As a side note, the game looks really swish. There's nothing you wouldn't expect, but it looks pretty, the animation is fluid and I've noticed very little in the way of glitches.
I'm seriously looking forward to the full game and am eager to see if the team behind this announce any other extreme sports games. They should! :-)
