Skate

[charlesr]

Vids and pics thread

Got this from VG+ (please mention us if you order from them).




Refreshingtastic.

I'm not saying it's the best game in the world, but this captures the esscence of board riding far better than any previous skateboarding game I've tried (so... Tony Hawks then). No jumping over buildings. Instead you get max kudos just for being able to jump from one bench to another without bailing.

Staying upright isn't too tricky - landings are quite forgiving, as long as you aren't draped over a rail

I'm finding flickit tricks hard though - I keep doing shuvits instead - more practice I think and more concentration.

So, you can start a career where there are loads of challenges dotted around, Amped style, and create your skater lookalike. Or you can freestyle around town. There's absolutely loads to see.

The first time I did a wall ride was a magic moment.

For those who haven't tried the demo, the riding is set up to be much like real life - so tricks look realistic and when you pull them off, there's a feeling of satisfaction (rather than just a feeling that you hit a huge ramp at speed and went high in the air spinning around lots).

I entered a competition in the Community Centre. The music came from someone's ghettoblaster, and the atmosphere from the oooos and aaaahs and owwwws from the small group of people watching just made the whole shebang seem tip top. Just a few skaters doing a few tricks over a few small obstacles, and yet it was a whole load of fun. And timing them so that we didn't all impact in the air was pretty funny.

The only OTT aspect so far was the intro movie, which was fairly amusing, but seemingly a bit at odds with what the game is trying to represent (won't go any further though cos of spoilers). It's hinted that the later areas in the game may have a bit more attitude though.

I like the boxart. A picture of a truck and wheel. Simple. Striking. And stands out in this age of in-your-face stuff.

I can imagine myself leaving the career behind on this and just spending most of my time mucking about.

So, nice one EA. Congrats. You've made me very happy.

[Yoshimax]

Region Free Goodness ?

[MikeF]

According to vg+ it's not region free sadly

[charlesr]

No sorry, US 360 here.

Been mucking about in Freestyle in a supermarket car park. Suddenly I'm being chased by Security, although he wasn't up to much.

Graphically it's inspired, with just the right level of gritty realism mixed in with colourful overtones to keep it all interesting and avoiding looking like a grey concrete jungle everywhere.

I stood around watching the peds for a while. Two guys said hi to each other. heheh. Stalked a girl for a bit. In the end she tried running away. ahem.... anyway.

Need to find some swimming pools in people's gardens I reckon.

Would be cool if there was a "no board" mode like in the vid for Feels like home

In fact the sort of skating you see in that vid is EXACTLY what you can expect from Skate (apart from having skateboards )

[Number45]

Is it out in the UK yet? I'm assuming you'd have to set your browser to US to fool the site into thinking you're based in the US.

[Keith]

Region Free Goodness ?

PS3 version will be, natch. If you're desperate like.

Edit: Heh, that read like a bit of a troll didn't it? Didn't intend it that way, was just assuming that Yoshi would rather have it on the 360 for teh LIVE.

[charlesr]

sorry, I deleted my post. I figured it out.

[Dazzyman]

Aye you had me sitting their with glee earlier Charlesr as I saw you playing it so thought my PAL version was on the way, appologies for disturbing you m8

[Malc]

Looking forward to the PAL version hitting our streets in like, a month!

But maybe it's good as otherwise amoungst the release of Halo 3 would harm sales possibly?

[Destrukticor]

only a month for the PS3 version according to gameplay

28\09\07 for the 360 version so a week and a bit then...

This is a must buy for me as the demo is still being played now. As CharlesR said this captures the essence of skating semi realistically and is a refreshing change from the hawk.

I hope this smashes hawk sales wise and shows that neversoft should not have rested on their laurels after P8.

[charlesr]

Play area is absolutely massive. You can spend hours just riding around if you want. You can teleport using a map in your backpack to places you've done things at already, or you can get an underground train to different areas.

After ages battling with EA login issues on their website I finally got to see my uploaded video. (I had an old EA Classic account apparantly??? which I had to transfer to a new EA account, but I'd already signed up for a new EA account earlier with my email address so it wouldn't let me transfer the Classic account to that email address because it was "already in use". Genius. I used a new email address in the end).

So I got going making a new vid for you guys to look at. Spent ages editing it with slo-mo and different camera angles at cool bits (my "coffin" move was ace) and then press upload. It spent a few mins generating the footage as per my edits and then said "Cannot connect to EA Nation". Live was still working though cos I could see my friends. I pressed Cancel (that was the only option) and instead of letting me try again, it reset me back to the main menu. Gah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I tried again and the same thing happened. Way to waste an hour of my life.

My last try at an EA game was Burnout 3 and we all know what a shambles that was on Live. Is this going to be a repeat? To be honest, the instant it said "charlesr signed on to Live" followed by "Trying to connect to EA Nation" I got scared. It's like they are saying, there's a good chance you won't be able to connect. (I may not have remembered that bit right perhaps it just said "connecting to EA Nation", but hey, exeggeration ftw).

I love the idea of being able to show you my vids (like the Forza pic thread), but if it's not going to work EVERY time, I'll not be bothering with that feature. There's a youtube style ranking for the vids too e.g. most watched, highest rated, newest etc. All very well thought out. Now if only EA's servers worked. I'll have another go later tonight - hopefully it's just early teething problems.

[charlesr]

Another step in the right direction for natural skating is the need to pump in and out of the pipe transitions (if in a half pipe) to get the height. Skaters do this. It's a bit like swinging your legs on the swing. Your body's energy is transfered into more height if it's done at the right moments. However, if you continue to hold the button down at the top, you pop out of the pipe and land on the top. Very cool and controllable.

[charlesr]

I found a swimming pool (no one in this town actually puts water in their pools ) and it was pretty thrilling, grinding around the edges and doing basic tricks.

If you find an area you like but there's no challenge there (which is most places), you can start filming and choose from a list of film challenges, e.g. get all of these in 20 seconds: get 1250 points, grind 3 times, get 8seconds of air time. So anywhere can become a place to continue the career mode.

I've almost nailed landing flatland tricks into manual (like wheeling or nose wheelying) which appears to give you more time to link into the next trick (like in Dave Mirra). My main problem is forgetting to grab or let go of the board at the right times. So I'll be doing a backflip and let go of it to early and land on my knees. Or I'll hang on to it too long and fall off when I'm still grabbing it on landing.

[charlesr]

And my final comment for this morning: what this game gets across really well is the simple pleasure that can be had from just riding along fairly slowly and popping the board sideways on to a kerb, grinding for a second and then popping off again. Try and see

[TommyG]

Great impression thanks Charles, really looking forward to this one