skate

May 4, 2007

We'll refrain from using the phrase "Tony Hawk killer" when describing skate. Tempting as it might be, EA Black Box's plans for a new take on skateboarding are, if nothing else, a lot more unconventional than most would expect. We talked to some members of the production team, normally known for the Need for Speed franchise, during our visit to EA's Vancouver facilities, and they've said that they're striving hard to package an experience that's quite different than what most gamers who consider themselves skating fans have come to expect.

Firstly, the focus is less on the superstar names and more on the name brands. While Bam Margera has become a household name, most people might not be as familiar with PJ Ladd or Mark Gonzales, unless they follow skating with more interest than an annual Hawk update. Secondly, the gameplay is significantly more focused on street skating. There are a handful of vertical skaters, but given that broad swaths of skate culture have moved more toward kids filming themselves across urban and suburban areas than on big air, too much emphasis on vert action would move the focus away from Black Box's goals for the game.

In our last preview, we focused a bit on the fundamental mechanics behind skate. Indeed, the game will force Tony Hawk fans to unlearn nearly eight years of button-mashing rails, kickflips, and grabs and take a more hands-on approach to the physical act of skateboarding. That means no auto-kicks. Given EA dev teams' love for using the right analog stick for stuff, every board move is centered on the right stick, from ollies to manuals. The left stick will control your skater's body. The triggers/secondary shoulder buttons will control modifying moves, such as leans and grabs.

While we feel that there's going to be a steep learning curve for many gamers, Tony Hawk fans really shouldn't have too much of an issue with it. If you go into the game with the realization that you're not going to be slamming out 50-50s into a pogo into a manual into a grind into a 360 kickflip within the first five minutes, it helps. Perhaps it was from watching others play before us, but we had a pretty good idea that our experience was going to be a bit unusual compared to the skateboard games we're accustomed to. For gamers concerned about skate being too tough to control, we'd say that it involves some "un-learning," but it's not a turn-off to us at this point.

What makes skate so different lies in the team's core vision: individuality. Sure, many of us have snapped out all sorts of cartoonishly ridiculous combos in the Birdman's outings, but skate's controls will force you to figure out your own style. Black Box representatives told us that throughout their playtesting process they've seen a variety of approaches to skateboarding. Some people prefer to get up to a rail and grind a lot, while others enjoy pulling off flips and grabs. We noticed this too, during both our play sessions and while watching representatives from other media outlets jump into the action. We also like the fact that with a tap of LB/L1 and right on the D-pad, you'll be able to pick a repeat point on each stage; Black Box is tentatively referring to this as a "section token." If you bail on a trick attempt, you'll start right back up from where you indicated, rather than having to skate back to your starting point. It's also handy for setting up video, but more on that in a bit.

The game will put you in control of a skater in a fully free-roaming town. Black Box is touting 120 total challenges within the game; most of them are rooted in street skating. You'll have to pull off stunts while evading angry security guards, pissed-off pedestrians, and taxi drivers who'd like to set you up for an intimate encounter with asphalt. You'll also have 20 "ownable spots" to hit; the "Spot Bible" will help you track these points down.

Besides the usual goals for sponsorship and getting affiliated with a manufacturer, you'll also strive to get into a variety of skateboard magazines. Black Box has aligned with both Skateboard Magazine and Thrasher for the game, and interestingly, the requirements to get famous for each mag are quite different. The dev team says that you could theoretically be a superstar in Thrasher, and because of your play style, go ignored in Skateboard. It could play a serious role in how the game is played, especially if Black Box decides to hinge achievements and Home trophies on this sort of thing.

Fortunately for us (but maybe not for anyone else), we got our first glimpse at the X Games stage (skaters in the know would probably be able to add two and two, since Danny Way is featured in the game), although it's still very early. We can say, however, that it will impress. The stage still hasn't been lit, so for us, it looked like participating in an indoor arena after midnight. Some of the basic lighting is intact, but there's no sense of a crowded stadium right now. The scale and scope is still quite impressive, though.

It was also at this point that we asked the Black Box team to let us upload a video of one of our feats within this level, and that's the point at which our demo got much more interesting. The video editing will allow you to not only upload your skate videos to Xbox Live (a feature officially dubbed "skate.reel") and to an area of the game's official website, but adjust camera angles and add filters and color tones. Based on where you place your session token, the editing process can be much, much easier. What we really like about the implementation of website uploads is that if you've watched your video and you don't like the way that you edited a camera angle for a grind or kickflip, you can go back, recut your video, and overwrite the old one. More than anything, it's a feature we're interested in seeing more of as the team prepares to show off more of the game. The other video feature, "skate.tv," will allow you to jump in and out of spectator-friendly games a la Project Gotham Racing 3.

So far, we're very impressed with skate. While the EA Black Box team is unproven in the skating genre, we find their approach to be a breath of fresh air. The idea of a more hands-on approach to the act of skateboarding might be off-putting to some Tony Hawk fans, but we don't think that it will be as awkward as it seemed during our first demo. It seems that a team that's gotten its fair share of experience working on Need for Speed titles would bring something new to the table, and we feel like that's what we'll get from the mapping and challenges within the game. Most importantly, we walked away from this demo sensing that the video uploading could spell the beginning of a trend that could cross over to a multitude of other titles, although it's a natural fit for skating. If you can't tell, skate has gotten our attention.