skate 3: witty title under construction

darleysam

skate 2.
We're back.

So what's been going on?
Set 5 years after the original, things have changed in San Vanelona. The city was destroyed by natural TERRORISM and has been conveniently rebuilt just in time for your apparent escape from jail. I'll be honest, I don't know what you're doing in jail in the first place, but it's probably connected to skateboarding and disasters, and will be explained in the likely-entertaining intro video (skate's was fantastic).

What does this mean for me?
Well the city has a different layout, for a start. It's a good excuse to do that. Secondly there's a big, bad, anti-skating corporation running everything and making your life a hassle. One of the RPG elements of the game will reportedly have you made a choice to either work for this company or against them. Choosing the former makes heavy use of the 'get off your board and walk around' mechanics, where you are expected to show up at 8:55am every day and push furniture around until 5:30pm where you go home and sleep until the next day*.

*[tiny]unconfirmed in a preview I just made up[/tiny]

As pointed out early on, however, in those 5 years spent making nice with the inmates, skateboarders have now learned not only how to step off their boards, but also how to move things around. You are now free to walk around and position yourself how you like, and grab tables, funboxes, rails, and other bits and bobs to make your own lines and fun things to do. Isn't that cool?

You've also been practicing your mad skating skills, and have learned a few new tricks that affords you a far greater range of ways to screw up and chew concrete. Firstly, you have the ability to remove your feet from the board (press one of your 'push' buttons in the air, preferably while grabbing) or to hippy jump (hold both 'push' buttons and release to SPROING). These basically cause a sudden explosion in variety. Go on, check your trick list.
You also now have the ability to bust out some funky handplants, again modified with the face buttons or whatever.
There is also the inclusion of special moves. Try flicking both sticks around in different combos to execute them. So far the list discovered reads like so:
McTwist 540
Half-Cab Nutscratcher
'The Jerky'
Super Ollie
40-60 Grind
Tony Hawk
{list will be updated}

What if I already have skate?
Then you may be perfectly happy playing that, and more power to you. But I do suggest giving the demo a try and seeing what you can come up with, because there's already some rather cool things being done. Don't believe me? Watch this.

Awesome Tech

Uh.. I mean this

Awesome Tech!!!

I know, right?

Also, watch this, made by our very own Blakout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIFwF0lwGFk

skate.xzzy.org
A handy site where you can go to upload your videos! Made by our very own xzzy, so be nice, thank him, and try not to break his internets.


Can I play with my friends?
Yes. To some degree, but I am uncertain exactly what the full range of multiplayer features will be (how open the city is, what modes and so on), although the demo features a couple of local modes that you may wish to try. I hear they are fun.

If you want people to play with, you can do worse than post in this thread and ask for gamertags and PSN IDs, add some folk, and get it on.

METATAGS!
360-owners can also send a friend request to PA Skate2 and use it like a clan list thing. You all know how that works now. It's run by MyNameIsWalrus, so.. just post in here to get his attention if you're left hanging.

If you're-a-peein (hurrr, European) then you should add Tu Wang Clan to your list, where other cultured gentlemen will gladly find the time to skate with you.

FOR PS3 OWNERS!
Name - ID

BloodyRoarXX - bloodyroarxx
Nocren - Nocren
liquidlogan - liquidlogan

Skateistan!
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/27/skateistanorg-a-skat.html

Afghan youth have learned to recover almost instantly from such routine violence. One person determined to inject some normalcy into their lives is Oliver Percovich. A 34-year-old from Melbourne, Australia, he plans to open this country’s first skateboarding school, Skateistan, this spring. He sees sport as a way to woo students into after-school activities like English and computer classes, which are otherwise reserved for the elite.
“Teenagers are trying to dissociate from old mentalities, and I’m their servant,” Percovich said. “If they weren’t interested, I would’ve left a long time ago.”

Spoiler:

Now, when he pulls his motorcycle into a residential courtyard here, a dozen youngsters pounce before it comes to a stop, yanking six chipped skateboards with fading paint off the back. The children, most participating in a sport for the first time in their war-hardened lives, do not want to waste any time. Their skateboard park is a decrepit Soviet-style concrete fountain with deep fissures. The tangle of novice skaters resembles bumper cars more than X Games.

But Percovich has raised the money needed to build an 8,600-square-foot bubble to house the nonprofit Skateistan complex, and the Kabul Parks Authority has tentatively donated land. He is still waiting for official permission to begin the project. And since a spate of kidnappings and the car bombing in late November, he has reduced his daily sessions at the fountain to once or twice a week.

Among those who look forward to his visits is Maro, an elfin 9-year-old girl who was terrified of skateboarding at first. “It gives me courage, and once I start skating, I completely forget about my fears,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/sports/othersports/26skate.html?_r=2&hp


Here's some arsey text I wrote for the old OP that says how to actually control the thing, just in case you've forgotten!

Spoiler:

One does not play skate. merely by stabbing blindly at buttons with thumbs until actions are performed on the screen. No, sir, the good men, women and children at Black Box have developed their so-called "flickit" control-scheme. The analog stick on the right of your controller, rather than being menial camera controls or featuring some other such rudimentary allocation, is used to control your skateboard. Whereas Mr. Hawk merely requests that you press, and subsequently release, a button to cause your avatar to launch himself skyward, skate. takes a closer approximation of real-life activities, by asking you to pull the stick downwards, then 'flick it' up to do the same. To perform a kickflip or a heelflip, rather than pushing up, you flick off to either side. Seemingly complex, the entire system becomes rather intuitive after some practice, and features a number of detailed manoeuvres, visible here (regular) and here (goofy).

defaultprophet

So either they fixed skate.reel (doubtful) or I was graced by the gaming gods, because I logged in and clicked find it and it was actually found! Now I have my gamertag bookmarked and everything. So here's the first crop of flippity stuff I have done.

Please forgive the mongo pushing. I'm goofy and by the time I realized that A only makes you push normally when in regular stance, I had become used to it. Trying to correct it, but once again, have to fight the stoopid fingers...

First up, Quad Kickflip 360 in Matrix Plaza:

http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/34979/posts/568522.aspx

Second, Double Heelflip to...shit, I wish I knew how to skate. Then maybe I would remember what it was called. Anyway just look:

http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/34979/posts/568524.aspx

Finally, I found this neat little gap from a retaining wall under the highway down about 15 feet to another smaller retaining wall. After a number of broken bones and a couple face slams into the billboard I made the gap:

http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/34979/posts/568523.aspx

Nocren

I'll post my little skate intro/bio in a bit (minus the "facts" and name) along with the 2 spots. I'll have to do the "attempt" bails later, though with my luck I'll probably nail the trick/grind every single time since I'll be TRYING to bail.

Sentience

My 360 is broken.

That means I can't play skate.

This makes me very sad.

DarkPrimus

So, I installed DownloadHelper, but the icon is greyed out when I view the skate.share website... Anybody able to help?

EDIT: Never mind, I just had to click the flv to get it to load first. Hah.

Nocren

Ok, so the system seems to be choking on my 25 sec no bail introduction run of awesomeness(all done completely back home at the CC without any of my usual camera edits and speed changes) but I'll offer up what I'll be presenting for my spots

Claustrophobia

The Claw

EDIT: IT WORKS!!!
Nocren's Intro

DarkPrimus

Hmm, now when I try to use DownloadHelper to get a video I just uploaded, it only gives me the option to DL a previous flv I got... which is on a different page entirely. I hope this is just a temporary glitch on my end, I just did succeeded at something I've been attempting for a good hour now, and I have to show it off.

EDIT: Nocren, you pasted the same video URL twice there.

DarkPrimus

Hey.

Hey guys.

Don't try this at home.

Kaligord

Im not sure why I keep coming into this thread, torturing myself as Im not able to buy the pretty right now. But as I am here I am forced to say the videos just keep getting better and better, especially the surprise sex in the underpass :winky: haha

I was thinking I can wait till Christmas to get SKATE but now Im not so sure, I guess I'll have to try and play The Witcher through my tears of dispair at being too poor for a 40 quid Xbox game, damn it.

Looking forward to the LOD video guys, keep up the good work.

SporkAndrew

Has anyone taken the Helevator yet? I love that spot.

If I manage to get enough freelance work done tonight to pay off some Christmas presents I'll hop in and try and get some stuff recorded.

J_L

I just can't stop skating the upstairs area of The Matrix Plaza, so many possibilities! i like the transfers down to ground level the most thought:
http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/3490/posts/563378.aspx
http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/3490/posts/563325.aspx

xzzy

Spent some time at my spots last night trying to decide what kind of stunts I wanted to attempt. Did up a quickie montage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKWQ91RRVs8

youtube absolutely butchered the quality. Not really sure how to set up a vid so it looks decent on youtube.

darleysam

Well I think I've found the spots I want, although none of them are actual registered places. I may swap one of them out, but it's a nice little run at the top of the map (I'll upload a video soon), and the other is the fun, long ledge that you have to manual down for a Thrasher challenge, not far from that Library Wall that DarkPrimus has.
I also really like this place, too http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/2795/posts/570982.aspx

edit: spork, did you want the Hellavator? No-one's claimed it yet.

Sam

DarkPrimus wrote: »

Oh, and here's a vid I did a while back of a sick line I did at the Art House.

YT

im speaking out of ignorance here, but wouldnt that have racked up like 800 points in tony hawk?

xzzy

darleysam wrote: »

http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/2795/posts/570982.aspx

I've seen videos of people doing hippy flips off that, and landing on the bench for a grind. Doesn't seem like a very good spot at first glance but once you skate it there's a bunch of stuff to do.

xzzy

Sam wrote: »

DarkPrimus wrote: »

Oh, and here's a vid I did a while back of a sick line I did at the Art House.

YT

im speaking out of ignorance here, but wouldnt that have racked up like 800 points in tony hawk?

I could be two thousand in skate. The game rewards heavily for stacking grinds like that, and is the easiest way to run up your multiplier.

Sam

xzzy wrote: »

Sam wrote: »

DarkPrimus wrote: »

Oh, and here's a vid I did a while back of a sick line I did at the Art House.

YT

im speaking out of ignorance here, but wouldnt that have racked up like 800 points in tony hawk?

I could be two thousand in skate. The game rewards heavily for stacking grinds like that, and is the easiest way to run up your multiplier.

so do you not need to link everything with manuals to have any hope of playing competitively?

darleysam

Sam wrote: »

xzzy wrote: »

Sam wrote: »

DarkPrimus wrote: »

Oh, and here's a vid I did a while back of a sick line I did at the Art House.

YT

im speaking out of ignorance here, but wouldnt that have racked up like 800 points in tony hawk?

I could be two thousand in skate. The game rewards heavily for stacking grinds like that, and is the easiest way to run up your multiplier.

so do you not need to link everything with manuals to have any hope of playing competitively?

Rather than having to have everything be a continuous linked trick, you get a score for the trick and a score for the line. So you can do a whole bunch of flips in a grind line that for a huge line multiplier, then run off and hit something else with that to score massive points.
Personally, I still prefer to try and make things look natural and realistic, rather than crazy THPS stuff.
Also, I finally got the "keep playing" (or whatever it's called) achievement today for getting the last of the spots, and I'm still finding new places to skate. Like that giant drainage run up the very top of the map, that launches across the street? Never seen it until today.
This game is so awesome.

xzzy

The game also keeps track of your "sequence" which is a series of tricks between the time all four wheels leave the ground, and the next time all four wheels touch the ground. So chaining moves together with a manual does increase your score. A flip to manual to flip will pump up your multiplier better than a flip to landing to flip.

darleysam

And then you find a nice ledge to grind, or a ramp/drop to hit, and forget all about scores and multipliers, and just go do the sweetest trick you can think of.

xzzy

Pretty much, yeah.

Unless you're trying to do one of those retarded film challenges.

darleysam

Which was one thing I had a problem with. You've got a game with some awesome, fluid mechanics that can create some really natural and flowing skating, and for those challenges they ask you to go all THPS for 30 seconds. Oh well, at least I've now beaten them.

xzzy

Game is damn stingy on achievements too.. got some 40 hours or so in the damn thing and only 360 points?

Stop cockblocking me bitch!

darleysam

Whoah, harsh. I think I'm just missing the Milestone one, and most online ones.

edit: Just seen, I've only got 485. What the hell, skate?

but then, I do have such a lovely picture

DarkPrimus

I need to get 20 comments on my video for an achievement. How the fuck am I supposed to do that. Wait, I know- I'll have all of you do it for me.

Comment on this video, because it's the only one I'm going to actually keep up for any amount of time.

darleysam

Comment'd!

People can comment on this one if they'd be so kind, I'll leave it up for now
http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/2795/posts/570982.aspx

edit: well I did leave a comment, but it's not showing.. strange.

japh

I'm calling the miniramp/halfpipe in behind the subway station before the rec park, for filming. its hard as hell to skate, but pretty rad.

Nocren

Yeah, the comments thing seems bugged... anyway, like half to a third of the achievments are for online stuff.

darleysam

Yessss, broke all my bones 10 times each (the Danny Way playground megaramp is the best way, there's a great angle I found that was breaking up to 11 bones a time), and I'm just grinding out the "3 hours in a no-skate zone" now for the last of the offline achievements. Nice.

jimb213

Well, after renting it a couple weeks ago, I finally picked up skate. And I still can't get the McKay challenge...

But I did realize from reading the previous thread that I was missing out on half the challenges with the Thrasher magazine stuff. I've pretty much only been doing the skateboard magazine stuff. so that's a whole buncha new stuff for me to do...

darleysam

I missed out most of the Skateboard mag ones until I'd completed the Thrasher career, then went and did those after. You're not missing out on anything. You can also go and do any uncompleted challenges at the end of the game, too. I just finished all the offline challenges tonight!

ShimSham

Yeah I did the SBMag ones long, long, before I finished the Thrasher stuff.

Nocren

Well, considering you get access to Thrasher until about your second picture or so in the Mag.

darleysam

I'm now proud to be past the half-way mark. I might actually try for as many of the online achievements as I can get, because some of them don't seem that bad.
Also, breaking my left femur 10 times was more challenging than I'd expect.

Rookie

I wish terribly that I could get in on this but I just can't get the stupid skate.reel site to work for me at all. *cry*

darleysam

That really sucks. It's probably one of the only complaints I have about the game, that the skate.reel site gives so many people these problems, locking them out of a large part of the game.

ShimSham

Yep.

And the only complaint I have about the actual game is that I can't get off my board.

It becomes a monumental task to get to the top of some steps.

darleysam

Yeah, it would be very nice to be able to get off my board. That said, for the most part, I've almost always found there's a logical way to get to anywhere I'd like to go. One or two places I've given up on, but most I can get to if need be. But it would be even better to be able to get off and go climbing or exploring across the city to find even more places.

YardGnome

ShimSham wrote: »

Yep.

And the only complaint I have about the actual game is that I can't get off my board.

It becomes a monumental task to get to the top of some steps.

I read in an interview that they had planned for walking to be in the game at the beginning, but that if they would have it would have taken away from the rest of the game, citing stuff as slants, ramps, and pools as difficulties.

Makes sense, but I still would have loved it to be in it.

Since I'm poor, I don't have the game, but I play the demo a lot. I managed to pull this off north of the community center. As I was celebrating, a car decided to ruin my fun.

http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/6081/posts/575721.aspx

darleysam

http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/2795/posts/577860.aspx

I think I'd like to do a better flip over the first jump, but this took long enough to get right in the end.

YardGnome

darleysam wrote: »

http://skate.share.ea.com/profiles/2795/posts/577860.aspx

I think I'd like to do a better flip over the first jump, but this took long enough to get right in the end.

You know you don't have to put slowmo on the entire video, right?