lost
05-18-2010, 02:00 PM
Title: Skate 3
Platform: PS3/360
Platform Reviewed: 360
Developer: EA Black Box (www.ea.com)
Publisher: EA (www.ea.com)
MSRP: $59.99
Writer: Martin 'lost' Perry
Skate 3 Review
Dude! Man! Brosef! Get on your board!
Skate 3 has been dumped on the shelves, much like the sequel last year, with little fanfare. It has some serious competition in this busy little period we've found ourselves in but you would hope that a franchise that completely re-invented how skateboarding games were played could pull enough tricks out of its hat to stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately, it seems as though the game is happy to just become more and more like the series it cast aside as an antiquity; it, again, introduces bigger and crazier stunts. That doesn't make it bad by any means and, in almost every way, it improves on the weak second entry.
To start with, rather than a bland adjustment of San Vanelona we have a completely new city to play in – Port Carverton. Described as a skaters paradise it delivers a much more segmented world to skate in, being roughly cut into 3 connected sections – industrial, university and a downtown city area. In all it feels far less like an organic city and much more like a skatepark pretending to be a real urban environment – much like the locations of many a Tony Hawk game, particularly American Wasteland. Purists will decry this change, I would imagine, but it at least serves to allow the developers significant room to make take their familiar challenge themes in somewhat new directions. Where the original was happy to task you with enjoying natural skate spots and the second gave you over-the-top ones, Skate 3 decides to mix the two during a tour of all the new sights and sounds.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/LostGames/skate2_00001.jpg
Further improvement is wrought from the fact that Black Box have finally listened to their consumers – no security guards means less frustration and the disappearance of S-K-A-T-E means the casual player no longer has to perfect the tricky controls in order to pull off particular moves. The Hall of Meat is back in a big way and new challenges see you leap from tall buildings before gliding (see: inFamous/Prototype) or nosediving (see: classic suicide method) into obstacles below you; clocking up points from broken bones, distance travelled and other variables. I personally found these to be the most enjoyable parts of the game, blitzing through them in their entirety before I really explored deeper into the game. Black Box – keep these for next year.
My enthusiasm doesn't extend to the new 1up challenges. Replacing S-K-A-T-E, where you had to match particular tricks, this new task pits you against an AI opponent with 20 seconds to improve on the score they set. This continues until you, and it usually is you, or the AI fails to '1up' the current set score – rise and repeat until somebody achieves wins 3 times. Choosing between these challenges and their predecessors is like choosing between the AVP films: both suck, for very similar reasons, but at least the sequel is a new sort of fail. Put bluntly, this head-to-head gameplay punishes the player, doesn't celebrate the strengths of the game mechanics and will likely be avoided at all costs.
You can completely bypass them, fortunately, on your quest to sell 1 million skateboards under your newly established skate brand. Choosing a name and logo from the outset you'll see more evidence of your brand's popularity appear around the world, with stickers plastered over funboxes, as you reach each sales landmark. These landmarks typically add a new skater to your team which, like your original, you have a heady amount of options in order to customise them. This includes putting together basic clothing items that will feature a color of your choice and a team logo positioned to your liking. Wizard's Revenge, my team, eventually consisted of Martin leThrash, Harper Halfpipe, Earl of Owned, Doc Wreckage and Champion O'Shred, all dressed in bright hoodies and t-shirts featuring a monocle and a moustache motif.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/LostGames/skate2_00002.jpg
The trailers to the game actually made a bit of a bigger deal of the team challenges. Really they just consist of you taking a bit of footage or a few pictures, much like you do in other non-team challenges, but in a more free-form manner. Other than that a team-mate may or may not assist you in the much easier downhill Deathraces or in team-centric competitions. I absolutely felt connected to my brand, I want to own many the t-shirts I made, and my team-mates contributed to this, they just never felt like my buddies. I find it odd that Black Box continue to avoid creating a community within their environments - shops, a day/night cycle and making your team-mates interesting new friends would all add to the sandbox. Make no mistake though, Skate 3 is big on you playing with your buddies.
Multi-player has been expanded and improved on, even if it remains a mystery to me why they don't use Burnout Paradise's drop-in-drop-out structure, and, much more importantly, sharing footage and pictures is back in a big way. The developers seemed to have fallen out with those elements but, rightly so, skate.ea.com is now filled with cool videos and stills, along with competing teams, clans for you CoD fans, and you are encouraged to get in on the act. Editing features have mercifully been spared from being bundled into $DLC and the loading messages regularly feature comments regarding the types of things you might want to put together.
Your creativity isn't just limited to putting together show reels and crafting classy photography but now finally extends into building our own skateparks. Almost identical to the Tony Hawk versions, the level editor allows you to create street and vert parks of your liking. Much more interestingly though, this new editor stretches its influence into the main play area. Sure, you can still move around existing benches and rails but, feeling similar to Halo 3's Forge, you can add new items and structures on the fly. This effectively gives the game an endless capacity for new spots and you and your friends can play about with the possibilities. It's easily the best new feature in a game that doesn't add much to its actual skating mechanic.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/LostGames/skate2_00003.jpg
In all, Skate 3 is a very positive experience with more fun to be had than frustration. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the game that Skate 2 should have been. Unfortunately it almost suffers from that fact, with the novelty of its obtuse control scheme really starting to wear off and its challenges, although improved, feeling a little stale. I would love to see them take the Burnout Paradise route with multi-player, it would be absolutely amazing, and it may be time to realise that the flick-it control scheme needs restructuring to allow for easier creativity in how you conduct a particular run or spot. This method of control just doesn't come naturally to us all and, like I did, you will quickly bore of aimless exploration if you repeatedly pull off Pop Shuv-its whether you want to or not. If you missed the buggy first sequel, this new entry will seem like a pretty mind-blowing experience. For the rest of us it's just about good enough to get rid of that nasty taste we had in our mouths.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
http://evavhost.com/public/35.gif
The Good Port Carverton is a new and fun place to play in with some really cool special areas.
Challenges are, in the majority, much less frustrating and the game is more fun as a whole.
I really enjoyed creating my own brand and the video/picture sharing is great.
Dropping in items adds a lot, complete park editing has a novelty too.
The Bad Skating, and all the tricks that come along with it, feels overly familiar and, yet again, I felt no more able by the end of the game than I did at the start.
The 1up challenges really suck and some of the street competitions are brutal whereas the bowl comps are really easy. In general, the game's difficulty tends to spike and plummet all over the place.
Black Box have left their new innovation on the sidelines for much of the single-player experience. Familiarity really does breed contempt.
The Ugly The gliding, as fun as it is, completely breaks the game's realism.
Platform: PS3/360
Platform Reviewed: 360
Developer: EA Black Box (www.ea.com)
Publisher: EA (www.ea.com)
MSRP: $59.99
Writer: Martin 'lost' Perry
Skate 3 Review
Dude! Man! Brosef! Get on your board!
Skate 3 has been dumped on the shelves, much like the sequel last year, with little fanfare. It has some serious competition in this busy little period we've found ourselves in but you would hope that a franchise that completely re-invented how skateboarding games were played could pull enough tricks out of its hat to stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately, it seems as though the game is happy to just become more and more like the series it cast aside as an antiquity; it, again, introduces bigger and crazier stunts. That doesn't make it bad by any means and, in almost every way, it improves on the weak second entry.
To start with, rather than a bland adjustment of San Vanelona we have a completely new city to play in – Port Carverton. Described as a skaters paradise it delivers a much more segmented world to skate in, being roughly cut into 3 connected sections – industrial, university and a downtown city area. In all it feels far less like an organic city and much more like a skatepark pretending to be a real urban environment – much like the locations of many a Tony Hawk game, particularly American Wasteland. Purists will decry this change, I would imagine, but it at least serves to allow the developers significant room to make take their familiar challenge themes in somewhat new directions. Where the original was happy to task you with enjoying natural skate spots and the second gave you over-the-top ones, Skate 3 decides to mix the two during a tour of all the new sights and sounds.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/LostGames/skate2_00001.jpg
Further improvement is wrought from the fact that Black Box have finally listened to their consumers – no security guards means less frustration and the disappearance of S-K-A-T-E means the casual player no longer has to perfect the tricky controls in order to pull off particular moves. The Hall of Meat is back in a big way and new challenges see you leap from tall buildings before gliding (see: inFamous/Prototype) or nosediving (see: classic suicide method) into obstacles below you; clocking up points from broken bones, distance travelled and other variables. I personally found these to be the most enjoyable parts of the game, blitzing through them in their entirety before I really explored deeper into the game. Black Box – keep these for next year.
My enthusiasm doesn't extend to the new 1up challenges. Replacing S-K-A-T-E, where you had to match particular tricks, this new task pits you against an AI opponent with 20 seconds to improve on the score they set. This continues until you, and it usually is you, or the AI fails to '1up' the current set score – rise and repeat until somebody achieves wins 3 times. Choosing between these challenges and their predecessors is like choosing between the AVP films: both suck, for very similar reasons, but at least the sequel is a new sort of fail. Put bluntly, this head-to-head gameplay punishes the player, doesn't celebrate the strengths of the game mechanics and will likely be avoided at all costs.
You can completely bypass them, fortunately, on your quest to sell 1 million skateboards under your newly established skate brand. Choosing a name and logo from the outset you'll see more evidence of your brand's popularity appear around the world, with stickers plastered over funboxes, as you reach each sales landmark. These landmarks typically add a new skater to your team which, like your original, you have a heady amount of options in order to customise them. This includes putting together basic clothing items that will feature a color of your choice and a team logo positioned to your liking. Wizard's Revenge, my team, eventually consisted of Martin leThrash, Harper Halfpipe, Earl of Owned, Doc Wreckage and Champion O'Shred, all dressed in bright hoodies and t-shirts featuring a monocle and a moustache motif.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/LostGames/skate2_00002.jpg
The trailers to the game actually made a bit of a bigger deal of the team challenges. Really they just consist of you taking a bit of footage or a few pictures, much like you do in other non-team challenges, but in a more free-form manner. Other than that a team-mate may or may not assist you in the much easier downhill Deathraces or in team-centric competitions. I absolutely felt connected to my brand, I want to own many the t-shirts I made, and my team-mates contributed to this, they just never felt like my buddies. I find it odd that Black Box continue to avoid creating a community within their environments - shops, a day/night cycle and making your team-mates interesting new friends would all add to the sandbox. Make no mistake though, Skate 3 is big on you playing with your buddies.
Multi-player has been expanded and improved on, even if it remains a mystery to me why they don't use Burnout Paradise's drop-in-drop-out structure, and, much more importantly, sharing footage and pictures is back in a big way. The developers seemed to have fallen out with those elements but, rightly so, skate.ea.com is now filled with cool videos and stills, along with competing teams, clans for you CoD fans, and you are encouraged to get in on the act. Editing features have mercifully been spared from being bundled into $DLC and the loading messages regularly feature comments regarding the types of things you might want to put together.
Your creativity isn't just limited to putting together show reels and crafting classy photography but now finally extends into building our own skateparks. Almost identical to the Tony Hawk versions, the level editor allows you to create street and vert parks of your liking. Much more interestingly though, this new editor stretches its influence into the main play area. Sure, you can still move around existing benches and rails but, feeling similar to Halo 3's Forge, you can add new items and structures on the fly. This effectively gives the game an endless capacity for new spots and you and your friends can play about with the possibilities. It's easily the best new feature in a game that doesn't add much to its actual skating mechanic.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/LostGames/skate2_00003.jpg
In all, Skate 3 is a very positive experience with more fun to be had than frustration. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the game that Skate 2 should have been. Unfortunately it almost suffers from that fact, with the novelty of its obtuse control scheme really starting to wear off and its challenges, although improved, feeling a little stale. I would love to see them take the Burnout Paradise route with multi-player, it would be absolutely amazing, and it may be time to realise that the flick-it control scheme needs restructuring to allow for easier creativity in how you conduct a particular run or spot. This method of control just doesn't come naturally to us all and, like I did, you will quickly bore of aimless exploration if you repeatedly pull off Pop Shuv-its whether you want to or not. If you missed the buggy first sequel, this new entry will seem like a pretty mind-blowing experience. For the rest of us it's just about good enough to get rid of that nasty taste we had in our mouths.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
http://evavhost.com/public/35.gif
The Good Port Carverton is a new and fun place to play in with some really cool special areas.
Challenges are, in the majority, much less frustrating and the game is more fun as a whole.
I really enjoyed creating my own brand and the video/picture sharing is great.
Dropping in items adds a lot, complete park editing has a novelty too.
The Bad Skating, and all the tricks that come along with it, feels overly familiar and, yet again, I felt no more able by the end of the game than I did at the start.
The 1up challenges really suck and some of the street competitions are brutal whereas the bowl comps are really easy. In general, the game's difficulty tends to spike and plummet all over the place.
Black Box have left their new innovation on the sidelines for much of the single-player experience. Familiarity really does breed contempt.
The Ugly The gliding, as fun as it is, completely breaks the game's realism.