In September 2007, Skate breathed new life into skateboarding games on the next-gen consoles with a fresh, back-to-basics control scheme that was the literal antithesis to frenetic, button-centric style of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise. Now, 16 months later, THPS 10 (!) is still in limbo between developers, leaving Skate 2 as the only skateboarding game in town. Does developer Black Box’s sophomore effort provide a worthy successor to the original game?

Gameplay:

After an only mildly entertaining and highly implausible Blues Brothers-inspired FMV sequence of your character being released from jail (for what?!?), you are picked by an old colleague (appropriately) named Reda “The Mouth” and dropped right into your first tutorial where you are simultaneously reacquainted with both the “new” city of San Vanelona and Skate’s “flick-it” control scheme. On paper, it’s quite straightforward: The right analog stick controls your board, the left analog stick controls your body and steering, the left and right triggers are used for hand grabs and the A, B and Right Bumper buttons make adjustments that turn basic moves such as rolling, jumps, grinds, skids into beanplants, powerslides and so on. Strictly relegating movement of the board to the right analog stick is where Skate’s magic truly lies, as it intuitively mimics the act of leaping, braking and shifting weight on a skateboard. The first time you manage to pull off a front or rear manual (balancing on the nose or tail of your board while in motion) you will immediately understand just how natural and exhilarating this can feel, and once you start to learn how to use manuals to string tricks together, I dare you not to crack a smile of enjoyment. However, much like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there is a flipside, actually, make that two flipsides. The left analog stick, which controls your body, is much less accurate, and since it is also used to control your steering it is very easy for one to unintentionally twist the position of their skater in mid-jump, resulting in unwanted body flips. The second flipside is that while using the right analog stick feels natural, the actual motions needed to pull off particular moves like shuvits, nollies and kickflips seem to require Street Fighter 2-level accuracy, which the Xbox 360 analog sticks are generally not good for. While this is not necessarily a game breaker when one is exploring San Vanelona at his or her own pace, career missions and other challenges that require specific sequences of tricks and grinds will have many players attempting the same frustrating tricks over and over ad-nauseum until they finally get it right.

Another aspect that both enhances and detracts from the fun Skate 2 is the floaty, fidgety camera. The player’s field of view is almost exclusively from a low angle behind the skater when he or she is skating, which adds to the sense of immersion but also inevitably means that your body will almost always get in the way when you are trying to set up the perfect line or maneuvering through oncoming traffic or pedestrians. Further complicating matters are the pedestrians and cars themselves, be they business professionals, tourists, elderly citizens, teenagers or even fellow skaters, as their common goal in life seems to be to get in your way and stay in your way as long as possible. This becomes evident whenever you try and reattempt a difficult jump trick and see the same pedestrian that you ran into only moments ago still getting up or wandering around in the same spot, and continuing to block your path. The ability to put down a marker that allows you to retry a trick from your chosen spot can save you time, but because your unintended victims tend to appear in the same place several times before they finally get the picture and move on, the repetitive collisions also add to the frustration. Also, if you happen to respawn on a city street, expect to be mowed down often by cars, which will often strike you even if you are on foot and standing still. The density of pedestrians and traffic can be adjusted or even turned off during Freeskate Mode, but a simple “shove” move a-la SSX Tricky would have at least made dealing with wayward pedestrians much easier.

Graphics:

Skate 2’s new coat of polish is more colourful and vibrant than last year’s offering, and San Vanelona is larger, denser and more populated. The Edit Skater mode is similar to that of the previous game, but now you can make your skater a female if you want. Don’t worry; if you change your mind, you can become a male again at any time by revisiting the Edit Skater mode from the pause menu. I based my skater’s model on my wife, much to her displeasure once I started crashing headfirst into cars and mailboxes. Your skater can also be decked out with a wide selection of custom designed shirts, jackets, pants and skateboards. Players can even go to EA's website to design custom graphics that can then be imported into the game and applied to their character’s deck and threads.

Sound:

The sound effects of grinding, skidding, landing and bailing on different surfaces are incredibly realistic and at times can be gut-wrenchingly real. As someone who has yet to break a single bone in his life and visibly cringes when watching a movie with any sort of high-speed impact between someone’s face or teeth and a metallic object, I can say Skate is definitely not a game for the squeamish. But it is the unpleasantness of the squishing, scraping, cracking and snapping that really drives the gritty authenticity of Skate 2 home. For a real audio rush, grab onto the back of a car headed downhill, then let go and listen to the wind as it rushes past your virtual ears. That’s all that needs to be said. As far as EA Licensed soundtracks go, Skate 2’s is quite serviceable with a good mix of genres, like classic funk, soul, rock and nu-metal. There is also a very cool ambient soundtrack that serves as an additional layer of sound when you explore areas of San Vanelona that are not necessarily skateparks or challenge areas. Just think of the muzak usually piped through loudspeakers at amusement parks, then imagine it actually being good and you’ve got the idea. Likewise, pedestrians provide a good deal of humour and immersion in the game by making random comments that have nothing to do with you, helping to create the illusion that you are actually in a living, breathing San Vanelona.

Longevity:

Skate 2 provides many different modes to keep players engaged. The main mode is Career Mode where you complete challenges in order to attract the attention of sponsors and magazines such as Skateboard Magazine and Thrasher. At any time you can also participate in downhill races, street, transition and bonus contests, and if you simply prefer to explore and shred San Vanelona’s every nook and cranny, there’s a challenge for that too, called “Own The Spot”. Any time your skater discovers special structures of interest in the city, those structures are automatically added to your challenge map, at which point you can either choose to immediately take on or return to at a later time. Completionists can stake their claim to each of these structures by beating the spot’s assigned trick score, then they can “Kill the Spot” by beating a more difficult score with a more impressive and challenging combo. If you are connected to Xbox Live, you may alternatively be challenged to beat one of your Live Friends’ top score in that spot for bragging rights, making OTS challenges intensely personal and providing added incentive to try and beat each spot at least twice.

Overall:

Despite its occasional control flaws and sometimes unfriendly camera, Skate 2 still delivers a refreshing experience that continues to leave all other games of its kind, including the now archaic Tony Hawk franchise, eating asphalt. It is very sad that Black Box, the developers behind the Skate games were one of the EA-owned studios hardest hit by the parent company’s recent cutbacks, as their latest effort is truly worthy of praise. With a enjoyable sequel that improves upon the original in nearly every aspect, one can only wonder what Black Box might have done with Skate 3. Here is hoping that the remaining staff will be able to keep the franchise alive once they are absorbed into EA’s Burnaby studio.