Where Hawks Fear to Tread
skate is EA's attempt to change the landscape of skateboarding games. We've played it. Here's what we think.
Published: March 1, 2007
The "other guys."
Mentioning Tony Hawk without actually mentioning it was a fairly common theme during the event earlier this week here in San Francisco. Maybe they were just being gracious. Maybe they were trying to avoid the very comparisons that will inevitably be made by just about every gaming journo that sees the game. Whatever the reason -- at least in an official capacity -- the muted venue where we finally saw an early work-in-progress was a Tony-free zone.
Not that it really matters. All it takes is about 5 minutes with the game to realize it's not a clone of any existing skateboarding game. The massive city where it all takes place, San Vanelona -- a mélange of themes from San Francisco, Vancouver and Barcelona -- isn't even a real place. Borrowing a bit of the architecture and the general feel of those three skating meccas and building a sort of dream city that wasn't filled with perfect gaps and lines that stretched from one end of the level to the other was the idea. The realism (and it is there) comes not from real-life venues, but from the actual skating itself, skating that is entirely physics-based.
Before we actually poked around the game, the only thing we knew about it was that it was entirely driven by the dual analog sticks. After spending a little time with the actual game, impressively, that hasn't changed. Oh, there's more to it; you can push off with either your right or left foot by pressing the Square and X Buttons, and the L2/R2 buttons actually control grabs with either hand, but everything else in the game, every single trick, is pulled off with the right analog stick in a system EA is calling Flickit (yes, like all EA features, it has a name and a trademark already). The left stick simply controls your body.
Having played Tony Hawk games for the better part of a decade now, it did take a little getting used to. Stuff like ollies and nollies are done simply by flicking down then up (or holding up until the weigh shifts and then flicking up) to get air. Sweeping the stick out to the right or left will reward you with a shove-it or kickflip, and from there it's simple a matter of learning how to pull off all the tricks. There was a fairly bulky list of options in a cheat sheet EA provided, but we were more taken with the feel of the game. skate isn't about racking up massive million point combos, but rather learning to use the world to make your lines.
Because everything is physics-based, things like pumping your way up and down a half pipe feels different than in any other game, as momentum and weight are actually taken into account. Even in something as simple as pushing yourself along; rather than mashing the button or holding and releasing, you actually have to get into a rhythm, pressing in time with the animation to reach max speed. The area that we were turned loose in was just a smallish skate park, and though we weren't supposed to, we actually saw someone poke around a little and managed to skate their way into the sewer system and out of the level before getting respawned.
What was impressive about it all was just how solid the whole game felt. Though it was obviously still early (the framerate wobbled a little here and there), all of the core stuff was certainly in there. The skaters, guys like Danny Way (who actually helped out a lot on the game's design), Mark Gonzales, Rob Dyrdek, Mike Carroll, P.J. Ladd, Chris Cole, Jason Dill, Pat Duffy, Jerry Hsu, Paul Rodriguez and Dennis Busenitz (yes, that was a total cut/paste from the fact sheet), all had really weight to them. We actually felt like we were skating by feel rather than punching in a set of pre-set moves.
Here's an example: We started out just heading for a rail to try to grind it. Held down on the right stick, then flicked up, but did it too quickly and didn't get enough height to clear the rail. We ate it, ragdoll-style, got up, skated away and tried it again, this time with more speed and a longer prep for the jump. The second time was a charm and we managed to perfectly land the grind, but in a perfect example of how skate is different than any other skating game, the grind was determined by the speed, angle and where the board connected with the rail; no buttons necessary.
It works, and works beautifully, and almost immediately we saw the possibilities. Because all of the animation is physics-based, creating great-looking combos is something that actually looks different every time, and thus the development staff at EA Black Box have included the option to record your tricks and share them with friends online. You can even edit the videos and add your own music.
Online play and the storyline itself were the two areas that, sadly, we didn't get a chance to check out. EA is promising that you'll effectively make your own story, choosing to be a goodie-goodie or anti-hero based on your actions rather than a pre-set storyline path. The idea sounds intriguing, but we'll have to see how it's all pulled off. If it's anything like the rest of the game, though, we're guessing that that little event space where we saw the game may not be the only Tony-free zone...
Mentioning Tony Hawk without actually mentioning it was a fairly common theme during the event earlier this week here in San Francisco. Maybe they were just being gracious. Maybe they were trying to avoid the very comparisons that will inevitably be made by just about every gaming journo that sees the game. Whatever the reason -- at least in an official capacity -- the muted venue where we finally saw an early work-in-progress was a Tony-free zone.
Not that it really matters. All it takes is about 5 minutes with the game to realize it's not a clone of any existing skateboarding game. The massive city where it all takes place, San Vanelona -- a mélange of themes from San Francisco, Vancouver and Barcelona -- isn't even a real place. Borrowing a bit of the architecture and the general feel of those three skating meccas and building a sort of dream city that wasn't filled with perfect gaps and lines that stretched from one end of the level to the other was the idea. The realism (and it is there) comes not from real-life venues, but from the actual skating itself, skating that is entirely physics-based.
Before we actually poked around the game, the only thing we knew about it was that it was entirely driven by the dual analog sticks. After spending a little time with the actual game, impressively, that hasn't changed. Oh, there's more to it; you can push off with either your right or left foot by pressing the Square and X Buttons, and the L2/R2 buttons actually control grabs with either hand, but everything else in the game, every single trick, is pulled off with the right analog stick in a system EA is calling Flickit (yes, like all EA features, it has a name and a trademark already). The left stick simply controls your body.
Having played Tony Hawk games for the better part of a decade now, it did take a little getting used to. Stuff like ollies and nollies are done simply by flicking down then up (or holding up until the weigh shifts and then flicking up) to get air. Sweeping the stick out to the right or left will reward you with a shove-it or kickflip, and from there it's simple a matter of learning how to pull off all the tricks. There was a fairly bulky list of options in a cheat sheet EA provided, but we were more taken with the feel of the game. skate isn't about racking up massive million point combos, but rather learning to use the world to make your lines.
Because everything is physics-based, things like pumping your way up and down a half pipe feels different than in any other game, as momentum and weight are actually taken into account. Even in something as simple as pushing yourself along; rather than mashing the button or holding and releasing, you actually have to get into a rhythm, pressing in time with the animation to reach max speed. The area that we were turned loose in was just a smallish skate park, and though we weren't supposed to, we actually saw someone poke around a little and managed to skate their way into the sewer system and out of the level before getting respawned.
What was impressive about it all was just how solid the whole game felt. Though it was obviously still early (the framerate wobbled a little here and there), all of the core stuff was certainly in there. The skaters, guys like Danny Way (who actually helped out a lot on the game's design), Mark Gonzales, Rob Dyrdek, Mike Carroll, P.J. Ladd, Chris Cole, Jason Dill, Pat Duffy, Jerry Hsu, Paul Rodriguez and Dennis Busenitz (yes, that was a total cut/paste from the fact sheet), all had really weight to them. We actually felt like we were skating by feel rather than punching in a set of pre-set moves.
Here's an example: We started out just heading for a rail to try to grind it. Held down on the right stick, then flicked up, but did it too quickly and didn't get enough height to clear the rail. We ate it, ragdoll-style, got up, skated away and tried it again, this time with more speed and a longer prep for the jump. The second time was a charm and we managed to perfectly land the grind, but in a perfect example of how skate is different than any other skating game, the grind was determined by the speed, angle and where the board connected with the rail; no buttons necessary.
It works, and works beautifully, and almost immediately we saw the possibilities. Because all of the animation is physics-based, creating great-looking combos is something that actually looks different every time, and thus the development staff at EA Black Box have included the option to record your tricks and share them with friends online. You can even edit the videos and add your own music.
Online play and the storyline itself were the two areas that, sadly, we didn't get a chance to check out. EA is promising that you'll effectively make your own story, choosing to be a goodie-goodie or anti-hero based on your actions rather than a pre-set storyline path. The idea sounds intriguing, but we'll have to see how it's all pulled off. If it's anything like the rest of the game, though, we're guessing that that little event space where we saw the game may not be the only Tony-free zone...