Skate – Finally, a Realistic Skateboarding Game!

I know that all of you skateboarding junkies are already dropping five bucks at the local video game store to get your hands on a preorder copy of the new Skate, Skate 2, but before that comes out, all that you have is Skate—okay well Skate 2 just came out and it rocks, and it will obviously be featured in a future blog review, once I have a chance to play it. However, that does not take away from how amazingly kick ass that the first version of that game is, Skate. I grew up with a professional skater for an older brother, who owned a skate park, his own skateboard company and who sponsored me to skate, even though I sucked.

While my brother was busy getting filmed in popular skateboarding magazines like Thrasher, and winning competitions, I was still trying to figure out how to do a kick flip. So, the closest that I—and many other avid fans of skating with my same dilemma—could get to being a pro skater like my older brother was to play the popular Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater for the original Play Station. However, after getting bored of pressing the x and the y buttons repeatedly for hours, I wanted something more. Something that was far more realistic and that truly resembled the hand eye coordination, or hand foot coordination, that was required to be a great skateboarder.

Finally that day game, albeit only ten year later, when on September 13, 2007, Electronic Arts and Black Box finally released the most realistic and the best skating game to ever be created: Skate, for the Xbox 360 gaming console. This game takes the cake and blows the lid off all other skating games, period! A game that offers a brand new graphical engine that truly takes full advantage of the next generation capability of the Xbox 360. The game comprises of a massive free-world board where you can basically skate to wherever you want to, but watch out for cars, or you will find yourself in the emergency room.

Learning the controls, especially since they vary so much from THPS, will be a frustrating aspect for many gamers, but well worth the time spent. For example, to kick flip you must use the left analog stick to perform the ollie move, and then simultaneously flick the right analog stick to perform a perfect kick flip. The same is true for grinds, rail slides and just about every other trick. Like I said, if you are willing to dedicate the time, Skate will bring you much skateboarding joy.

A massive free-world board assures that there is always something cool to skate that you have never found before; like a small, virtual city. There are plenty of challenges and competitions that you can enter to win cash to buy better gear. And the more you skate, and the more you win, the more challenges that you beat, the better that you get on your way to superstardom.

By far, Skate is the most realistic and best skateboarding game ever. Sorry Tony!

My Score: 10 out of 10