Skate

By Daniel Needham

Video games have had an impact on keeping the sport of skateboarding alive, and now EA is getting into the skating mix with the upcoming release of Skate. Read on to see how EA's initial foray into the skateboarding world is shaping up.

The game, due for release later this year, has been in the works since last year and will feature 19 real-life skate pros. You will eventually be able to skate all over a fictional city known as San Vanelona, a blend, in both name and design, of San Francisco, Vancouver, and Barcelona. EA producers have stated that the city you will eventually skate in will be a much more active place, complete with plenty of obstacles to take on, as well as a computerized populace, which will demonstrate varying levels of tolerance for your skating behaviour.

Skate relies heavily on the two analog sticks for the majority of the movements in the game. The left analog stick controls your skater's direction, and the right analog stick is responsible for the wealth of tricks you possess in your arsenal. For example, a basic ollie is executed by pushing down and then up with the stick; you can do a nollie, essentially a reversed ollie, by moving the stick up then down. Moving the stick up and slightly to the left or right will cause your skater to perform basic kick-flips or heel-flips.

Other controls in the game include the left and right triggers, which are used for grabbing the board with either your left or right hand. Interestingly, you can tweak your grab in midair by using the right analog stick for some extra variety on your trick. Manuals and reverse manuals are controlled by pulling back (or pushing forward) very slightly with the right stick.

Still, sometimes you do mess up, and Skate has crashes aplenty. With the sound turned up, the sickening thud of the body nailing the asphalt is pretty brutal. Pretty much any wipe-out situation you can imagine you can put yourself into, whether you plant yourself on a rail, or just go straight head-first into a wall.

In all, Skate looks like an ambitious game for the folks at EA, who are treading on ground that the biggest name in the skating business has occupied for most of the modern console era, especially since this seems to be shaping up as a more simulated style of the sport, rather than the arcade versions we have been content with for a decade.

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