skate on Xbox 360

Crap

JackyBhoy from Glasgow , 04/07/2008

This Game is Terrible crap controls and if u want to get a gamerscore boost forget it its the worst game ive played in ages

Read all reviews

Skate with Style

ZiggyPanda from Lincoln , 09/10/2007

Though the Hawksters project 8 added some new features and touched up the graphics for next gen the controls felt, though classic, too firmiliar. While some were willing to defend them to the death others felt the series wasnt making any new ground. With insane storymodes AND being able to pull off lines of 50+ tricks, reality wasnt neversofts concern, just addictive gameplay. Although the series has done skating justice, i wanted something original just like back in the day when i first picked up Tony Hawks pro-skater for psone. But who was gonna be risky enough to go against the Skating Legend?

EA, with some help from Danny Way (Mega Ramp, X-games gold medal champ) wanted to make something fresh yet deliciously old school and they delivered greatly on both.

So lets get right to it, after an opening cutscene its time to create your skater, though not as diverse as games like tiger woods or saints row you should be able to come up with a skater you like the look of, no option to create a female skater, sorry girls.

You're dropped into a small skatepark in the middle of an impressively large and detailed city littered with rails, fancy arcitecture, cars and pedestrians not to mention fellow skaters, why not go and explore it...you've just started the game??? well no worries because apart from a few small locations eg.hidden skateparks, the whole city is open right from the beginning. Although completing campain challenges can unlock new items, locations and earn you some sponserships it is possible to waste countless hours before even attempting some challenges by just free skating around town trying to find the perfect line.

Which is where the controls come in, unlike hawk games which require certain combo-like button presses, SKATE goes in a more realistic direction, Left analogue steers you, stops and spins you as you'd expect but the right analogue stick is where things get interesting, this is your trick stick. most tricks are motioned in a similar way a skaters feet are, pull back to lean down and move your feet to the back of the board and then push up to ollie, moves like kick-flips and heelflips can be down by pushing down and then pushing up diagonally, shuve-its are executed by pulling back and rotating to the left or right in a circular motion, all tricks can be reveresed to form similar Nollie tricks. trigger buttons grab your board with the right or left hand and using the right stick you can tweak into methods, mutes and even pull of a christ air. to grind just ollie onto a rail and the games fancy physics based system picks up how your board landed and provides the apporiate trick. Done something cool and wanna see it again, just hit start at anytime and check out the 'replay editor', here you can see the last 30 seconds of gameplay whilst also editing with 5 different camera angles, slow motion or fast motion and even some funky filters though sadly no free cam. the animation is so smooth even in super slow-mo tricks look flawless IF you've pulled them off that is. i found myself more impressed with simple boardflip to rail replays than 100x combos i got from tony hawks.

Theres so much more to this game it would take me well over my word limit to say them all but remember these words...

'Love Skateboarding? BUY SKATE!'

Read all reviews

Twitcy

A customer from York , 10/12/2007

Controls are far too twitchy to ever make a fun game. It feels more like a chore doing the challenges and skating the city.

2 stars awarded for graphics, scale and trying to make a game to beat Tony Hawks

Read all reviews

Alright if you just want to skate

Shifty , 29/11/2007

The controls are great and the game flows nicely....but my problem is that it's just about nothing, which means when you switch it off, there's little motivation to switch it back on again.

Read all reviews

Not for casual gamers

Zabadack from London [Highly rated reviewer] , 10/03/2008

Skate seems to have gotten rave reviews on every games site available but none seem to mention how hard it is to play. The game itself is very well made and the graphics stand out among skating games but it's really the control that makes it so amazing you have almost complete control of your feet wherever you want to put them on the board, this sounds like a good thing until you realise you have complete control of your feet and have to place them all over the board. Tony hawks made ollie's easy you pressed a button and your player jumped, it's not so easy with Skate. The simple act of perfoming an ollie means flicking the right analogue stick from bottom to top, sounds easy? now to do a manual you need to move the analogue stick halfway down.... now try manual to kickflip to manual... you can imagine it gets complicated and I haven't even explained reverts, grabs, grinds or advanced techniques such as christ air. The game features and open ended loosely story driven GTA style of play which can feel a little overwhelming at first but you soon get used to it. there are many other features in the game but this review box won't let me go in to so rent it if you're a boarding fan but be warned of the controls.

Read all highest rated reviews

Promising

OhJay from Croydon , 05/02/2008

It is widely accepted now that the 'Tony Hawks' series has declined in its innovation and general enjoyment over the past few installments. Without a viable rival it has proceeded to churn out mediocre games with no real progression. Ironically, it is EA who have now decided to make their own skating simulator to break the stranglehold Activision had on the market.

From the outset it is clear that they are going for a realistic skating simulator, in a controller style akin to their 'Fight Night' series the analogue sticks are mapped to player movement and board flips. Gaining speed is also more 'real'(don't expect to continue at full speed up a steep assent) and the hight made by a jump is almost always pitiful unless you are at full speed and have 'charged' your jump. The outcome of this is that pulling off tricks is rather difficult, but with this comes a bigger sense of achievement once you pull off an impressive line. However, most of your time playing Skate will be re-trying task after task after task...get my drift?

Of course, with a good game engine they need to complement it with a compelling career mode. The career mode is your basic affair of finding skaters, and pulling off tricks on/over stuff. They also add in competitions with other skaters in order to get your skater on the cover of famous magazines, which is the ultimate goal. The career mode is pretty basic and has been done on a grander scale in even the earlier versions of the Tony Hawks series.

One last thing that need to be said about this game is the excellent online service it offers, allowing you to upload your skaters best moves and in-game photos to the web or to be viewed on the web.

In conclusion it is a game which has a good game engine which will be endearing to those looking for a more true to life version of skating than has been made before, but overall the fun is definitely drained because of its adherence to gravity!

Read all highest rated reviews