Skate

skate is awesome.

It's a video game, about skateboarding. EA is looking to upset the Tony Hawk Pro Skater monopoly on next generation consoles with this title, and, after playing the demo, they just might.

Now, I've gone on record citing THPS for N64 as the greatest video game in the history of video games, a stance I will maintain forever.

It was so crazy awesome that the series quickly grew from a "skate and collect demo tapes to get sponsors!" game to "try to go off this ramp and attain near-earth orbit then grind on the Great Wall of China in a three million point combo" game.

But it was still awesome. Sure the controls were getting a little repetitive, but if it's not broke... and sure, they were running out of cool places to skate (how many generic skate parks in West Coast cities can you see before getting bored?), and sure, the only thing gamers kept coming back for were ridiculously inflated combo scores and Newtonian-defying inertia bonuses (it's physically impossible to speed up while grinding a level rail, as it turns out).

So THPS went on to tremendous heights (literally, I once jumped into a sixth story window), and raked in the cash hand over fist.

Enter skate. The demo takes place in an ordinary skate park. You're an ordinary skater. You do ordinary skater things like ollie, kickflip, heelflip. This game is aimed toward realism - you won't see any of these skaters magically pull a boombox out of their backpack in the midst of a one-footed smith grind.

But the real magic is the control scheme. It's new! It's exciting! It barely uses the face buttons at all! (seriously, "A" to push off was the only one I used the whole time).

You control the board with your right joystick, your body with the left. Tricks are performed by moving the joysticks up, down, left, right, and rotating them in either direction.

In no time I was flying around the park jumping over obstacles, pulling sweet looking grabs, powersliding into quick turns, and grinding low rails. And loving every minute of it.

Because as phenomenal as I am at Tony Hawk Pro Skater (I am phenomenal, seriously), I'm already feeling how easy this game will be to pick up. I'm going to dominate.

Exaggerated vs. Real - Button Mashing vs. Inuition

Everybody wins! (unless you're playing me... then you will lose.)

-t