First Skate Footage + IGN Hands-On

bruin

The footage can be found here: http://gamevideos.com/video/id/9695
It's also at Gametrailers.com if that doesn't work for you.

IGN hands-on here: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/769/769431p1.html

Rather than using the face buttons to perform kicks and grabs, skate makes use of the right analog stick for all of your moves. To perform the most fundamental move in skateboarding, an ollie, you simply press down on the stick and then flick it up. If you start by pressing up and then down, you'll perform a nollie. The longer you hold, the more your skater will set up and the higher he'll go. Likewise, the speed that you flick the stick also influences height. So if you want to perform a quick little hop over a curb, you can quickly flick down and then up to do so.

Most every other trick works off of variations on the ollie. If you want to perform a toe or heel flip, you roll the stick to the left or right at the end of the ollie, much as how you would flick your foot to spin your board. If you want to perform a pop shove-it, you'll want to kick your leg just as much as you jump, so you start with the analog stick to the side and then roll up and to the other side. To keep the board rotating in any of these tricks, like if you want to perform a double-heel flip, you simply keep the analog stick held for a bit longer, and then release to land.

Grabs are implemented with either trigger. Quite simply, the left trigger uses your left hand while the right uses your right. Spins are done by holding the left analog stick to the side, so if you want to perform an aerial trick off a ramp, you simply launch with a move off the right stick, use one (or both) of the triggers to grab your board and spin with the left stick. Once in the air, you're able to use both sticks to further modify your move.

The coolest thing about the game is that the control scheme once again makes skating fun. Simple things like performing a kick-flip down a set of stairs or hitting a rail stopped being fun a long time ago in the Tony Hawk games, but EA has managed to make these feel great again. For roughly the hour that we played the game we simply cruised about in the skate park and just sessioned. We weren't thinking about goals, what lie outside of the park or anything else - we quite simply just wanted to skate, and we can't think of higher praise for the game than that.

We've only seen a very small amount of what's to come in Skate, but we're seriously impressed at this point. Though it may be tough, the game feels extremely natural and subsequently very rewarding. When you nail a triple-heel flip, you feel like you actually earned it rather than having just pressed a couple buttons. We simply cannot wait to hop on a board again.

The gameplay footage really impressed me. Nice graphics, smooth animation, and the camera makes it look like a pro skating video. I haven't liked the THPS series since the third game, and this looks like the breathe of fresh air the genre needs.

Shadowfire

I like what I'm seeing, actually. I'm with you.. THPS stopped being fun around the 3rd... the game got too big, with too much to do (I know, it's backwards of what we -should- want).

Between this, and C&C 3, could EA be doing something right..?

bruin

Shadowfire wrote: »

I like what I'm seeing, actually. I'm with you.. THPS stopped being fun around the 3rd... the game got too big, with too much to do (I know, it's backwards of what we -should- want).

Between this, and C&C 3, could EA be doing something right..?

Spore is an EA game too.

I hate them as a company, but if they make good games I will buy them.

wenchkilla

Well, they are certainly perfect to knock the THPS franchise off their high horse in terms of timing. This is also the first time I've been kinda curious about a skating game.

Hmm, somehow I expected this to be on the PS2 as well, but alas.

darleysam

i didn't know they were doing that with the controls.. that's got me a whole lot more interested in this. I tried playing Thrasher a good few years ago, but never really got into it. I wanted something that presented more of a challenge than Mr Hawk (like everyone, loved the early games, then they got silly, and i've been enjoying Project 8 a bit lately), because i get tired of performing an impossibly long series of tricks (but being beaten by someone who can do it twice as long as me), and jumping off a huge ramp across half the world and landing with nary a bent ankle. I'm off to check the videos now, so i expect to be thoroughly wrong in some of those expectations.
But the controls sound nice.

edit: the actual in-game footage (about 30 seconds long, unless there's a better one) looks alright. I was expecting some big EA "blow up houses with extreme maneuvers" shenanigans, but it was nicely understated. Looked more authentic. Good show.

LewieP

My god. Its "Tony Hawkes Pro PN03/RE4/Godhand"

Shinji Mikami =

RichardTauber

They stoled my idea. Looks like shit. Brown that is. Can't wait.

Rookie

This is exactly what I need.

I've been waiting for you all my life.

Shurakai

Looks cool, hopefully turns out awesome. I'd love to just cruise around a highly detailed city environment pulling off a few tricks here and there.

Makes me wonder what the "objectives" will be though.

It seems to me that a game like this will rely on a strong single player storyline experience. They could actually pull off the "rising pro" angle if you are actually learning with time how to pull off more and more advanced tricks (aka, have everything available to you from the start, but you would only be able to pull these tricks off if you had the practice, much like games such as Guitar Hero)