Skate 2

[SchizoidFreud]

Developer: EA Black Box

Publisher: EA

Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3

Release Date: TBA

Genre: Sports

 

 

Skate 2 first details

• Takes place five years after the original game, after the city's been hit by an unknown disaster and had to be rebuilt.
  
• Includes an option to play as a female character.
  
• This time around with a character editor, inspired by the one featured in the Tiger Woods series.
  
• With an ability to jump off the skateboard and move away any objects that might be in your way, thus opening further roads and trails.
  
• The frightened passersby jumping out of your way as you ride.
  
• Teleporting yourself to a previously marked location without the troublesome loading times.
  
• Renewed camera including another third-person perspective.
  
• Will make use of EA's own web for uploading home-made videos.
  
• Supposed to run at full 60 frames per second.
  

List of Confirmed Skaters:

• Pat Duffy (as seen in trailer)
  
• Jerry Hsu (as seen in trailer)
  
• Mike Carroll (as seen in trailer)
  
• Rob Dyrdek (as seen in trailer)
  
• Terry Kennedy (as seen in trailer)
  
• PJ Ladd (as seen in trailer)
  
• Mark Appleyard (magazine interview)
  
• Mike Newman (magazine interview)
  
• Danny Way (game trailers interview)
  
• John Rattray (as heard in trailers)
  

Details from IGN

 

Recently, EA announced it was working on Skate 2 for PS3 and Xbox 360. And that's about all EA was willing to say about the sequel. However, the official Skate website has several teaser videos. None show gameplay, but two of the videos provide hints on the setup for Skate 2.

 

According to the videos, five years have passed and San Vanelona is very different place. Shortly after you won Skater of the Year, your character disappeared. No one knows what happened to him, but the skaters of San Vanelona hope he'll come back. And they need you. In the past five years, the cops have cracked down on skaters. Caps were put on rails to make it almost impossible to grind and "No Skating" signs are everywhere.

 

San Vanelona was once a paradise for skaters. Now it's their worst nightmare.

 

That's all we know about Skate 2 so far. No gameplay details have been provided, though it appears things won't be so easy in the sequel.

 

 

Trailer(s):

 

[gt]34266[/gt]

[HundredProofSam]

 

hopefully EA has found a cure for its sequelitis and they can make this an improvement over the first one, which btw was smashing

 

although the IGN article makes it sound like Skate: Most Wanted....not a good sign

 

 

 

peace

[SchizoidFreud]

First Screenshots

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Aftrunner]

I really hope they realize what made skate a success was the fact that it cut all the BS out and concentrated on making (somewhat realistic) skating the central focus of the game. That and the control scheme was what made it so brilliant and not a THPS clone.

 

The city itself was part of the charm, problem is all those no skating zones were my least favourate parts of the city, sadly the rot seems to have spread. No skating signs everywhere, caps on rails, ability to get off the board and a less skater friendly city. Its not exactly filling me up with confidence. Still I loved Skate so much I am willing to give it the benefit of doubt.

[Ne0]

I really hope they realize what made skate a success was the fact that it cut all the BS out and concentrated on making (somewhat realistic) skating the central focus of the game. That and the control scheme was what made it so brilliant and not a THPS clone.

 

The city itself was part of the charm, problem is all those no skating zones were my least favourate parts of the city, sadly the rot seems to have spread. No skating signs everywhere, caps on rails, ability to get off the board and a less skater friendly city. Its not exactly filling me up with confidence. Still I loved Skate so much I am willing to give it the benefit of doubt.

 

control scheme is innovative alright, but it gets on ur nerves after a while. To fiddle with the analogs, every time i want to ollie, that needs to change ! I'm not saying bring back the TH's button mashing, but skate controls needs some refinement as well !

 

And the camera angle needs a fix as well. Grinding gets annoying at times, since the player blocks the rail completely in front of you, and u need a good alignment to perform it !

 

Just my opinion

[HundredProofSam]

yup, as much fun as skate was, the controls definitely need to be refined....gets a little annoying at times especially when ur cruising at a low speed and yes, the camera needs to be fixed as well

 

and a steady frame rate on the PS3 version would help too

 

 

 

peace

[SchizoidFreud]

New Skate 2 scans

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SchizoidFreud]

Skate 2: Welcome Back to San Vanelona

 

 

IGN: So what has happened to San Vanelona since the first game?

 

Scott Blackwood: Skate 2 picks up five years after Skate It. As you all know some gnarly events happened to San Vanelona in Skate It, leaving the city desolated and in ruins (fortunately no one was hurt). Since then a mega corporation called Mongo Corp. rebuilt it, and gave the city a complete overhaul creating "New San Vanelona." There are plenty of new places to skate including more skateparks, raw street spots, crazy hill bombs, and sick pools.

 

IGN: Do cops play an active role in the game?

 

Scott Blackwood: Security will be back and definitely playing an important role, but don't worry, even though they'll be smarter we'll be giving you ways to deal with them time around. Stay tuned for more details on that later.

 

IGN: Has the control setup been modified at all?

Scott Blackwood: We're staying true to the authentic feel of the Flickit analog controls. I guess you could say we've added more layers to the original control scheme, so you'll be able to do a lot more, but it will really feel like a natural extension of Flickit.

 

As you recall, we gave the player control over both hands and feet to push and grab in the first game. By completing that circle we've opened up a lot more tricks -- in fact, double the number you could do in the first game. In Skate 2 players will be able to use their hands and feet in different ways to do bonelesses, no complies, finger-flips, inverts, hippie-jumps and on and on...

 

The two other additions to the controls in Skate 2 are the "Grab the World" and "Dismount" buttons, both of which offer a ton more gameplay possibilities.

 

IGN: While the street tricks were relatively easy to pull off, hitting a ramp took a lot of practice. Have the ramp mechanics changed at all?

 

Scott Blackwood: We've taken a look at the transition mechanics and tuned them to make them even better. Ramp skaters will be super stoked when they see all new tricks we're throwing at them. Inverts, one foot airs, grab grinds...get ready for some fun vert ripping.

 

IGN: How is the progression set up this time around? Is the game still entirely open from the start? Are you part of a more linear storyline, or is it still up to you to decide how and when you want to approach challenges?

 

Scott Blackwood: All I can say at the moment is it's a bit from column A, B and C... we'll be getting into more of those details later on.

 

IGN: What major competitions will you be able to partake in this time around?

 

Scott Blackwood:...Um...yes... you will be taking part in major competitions

 

IGN: Let's talk sponsorships and partners. Anything major you want to announce on that end?

 

Scott Blackwood: You'll see the return of many brands from original Skate as well as some new brands that wanted to be a part of Skate 2. We're stoked at the number of companies that approached us about being in Skate 2. I guess we must be doing something right.

 

IGN: What new skaters have you signed on for the sequel?

 

Scott Blackwood: We're stoked and honored to be working with another amazing line-up of skaters. These are people that have relevance in the skateboarding culture and will continue to add to the authentic feel of our game. There will be familiar faces from the original Skate, like Danny Way and Rob Dyrdek, but you'll also some fresh faces and a couple new legends as well.

 

IGN: Thanks for your time!

[SchizoidFreud]

Previews: Skate 2

 

Certainly one of the more surreal experiences I've had is playing Skate 2 while associate producer Chris "Cuz" Parry -- the memorable disembodied announcer from the first Skate -- sits behind me, saying, "No way! How'd you do that?" and chuckling after I take a particularly nasty spill. He's a bit of a kook (his words), but he's exactly the kind of person that should be working on this franchise -- a grizzled skater hippie who's as passionate about his game as he is about the sport, as proven by a gnarly gash on his leg earned the day before my visit. In fact, besides the hippie part, this holds true for everyone at Vancouver-based EA Black Box: They're unflinchingly dedicated to producing a game that, mechanically and culturally, represents skateboarding as faithfully as possible -- something that is absolutely evident in the first Skate.

 

"It's the first thing on our mind whenever we think of anything new for the game," says producer Jason DeLong. "To be frank, skate culture is one that's used to being appropriated. Our goal, originally, was to not appropriate it but to kind of become part of it, and I think we've succeeded."

 

And they've done so in a big way. Skate surprised everyone last September by besting the competition not only critically but also on the sales charts -- a wake-up slap that's prompted that other franchise to take its first yearly break in nearly a decade. "You know, it's interesting," says DeLong. "We didn't get into this to say 'Let's bury another game.' For us, it was, 'There's a skateboarding game out there, it does well, and people like playing it.' But we had a different thing we wanted to do, and we did."

 

Though Black Box is very coy about much of the new content in this sequel -- no word on the mission structure, multiplayer, or video-editor changes -- they were quick to point out all of the "fixes" from the first game and the setup for Skate 2's narrative. Five years have passed in Skate's San Francisco/Vancouver/Barcelona hybrid known as San Vanelona (now called New San Vanelona), which has suffered an unknown disaster, been partially rebuilt, and become "a less friendly place for skaters." Though Black Box wouldn't explain exactly what that means, it seemingly gives a narrative reason to put metal caps on rails that can be removed as a reward for good behavior -- like not fighting security guards. These new dramatic motivations may be exciting once they're unveiled, but the story isn't the reason most fans enjoyed the first game.

 

The brilliance of Skate lies in its inspired control scheme, where the left analog stick shifts the skater's body weight and direction while the right stick is responsible for all of the tricks. From that basis, the entire move palette just makes sense: Tilting the stick backward or forward to a perfect center of balance allows you to manual or nose manual, turning your body allows you to spin while the triggers let you grab, and you can grind simply by landing on rails and flat edges at the right speed and angle. Convincing physics work hand in hand with the control scheme as well, dictating your skater's relationship with the environment and ensuring that the entire experience clicks and produces a satisfying, never-ending learning curve.

 

Those basic mechanics are wisely unchanged in Skate 2, though the development team has expanded the move set with a couple of choice additions. You can now perform foot plants and hippie jumps (letting the board go underneath a rail while you jump over it to land back on) by taking one or both of your feet off of the board while in the air, and you can now pull off handplants by grabbing the top edges of skate-able bowled surfaces. While hippie jumps are tons of fun (and allow for some of the most painful bails yet), lifting your skater's feet with the A and X buttons on the 360 controller presents a new problem. In the first Skate, I would press A before landing to start pushing off as early as possible, but doing so in Skate 2 just makes me bail with one foot off the board as soon as I hit the ground. These new moves, the combinations they allow (like grab grinds), and their variations double Skate's bag of tricks to over 200. Skaters and fans of the original will certainly appreciate the specific additions, but they seem more tailored toward refining and adding layers to the first game's formula than to tangibly expanding it.

 

The biggest change in navigation and environment interaction, though, is the ability to get off of your board with the tap of a button. Stepping up onto a curb is no longer a trying ordeal when you lack momentum, and being able to easily ascend a flight of stairs makes a big difference in the way you relate to the geometry around you. To further take advantage of being away from your board, you can also use the new Grab the World button (it's on the right bumper, and it's also used for handplants) to drag around movable objects -- benches, mailboxes, or anything else that isn't too heavy or otherwise bolted to the ground. This introduces a puzzle element to the career mode -- a character could beckon to you from a rooftop, and you'll have to find or create a path to reach them. The dragging controls and animations were still rough in the build we saw, but that didn't stop us from spending 10 minutes trying to line up a couple of benches just right -- and then another 10 trying to hit the line we'd just created (and passing around the controller so that others could try). Because the Skate experience is based purely around skill and the player's learning curve (since you can't level up, your skater is as good as they'll be from the get-go), creating your own challenges on the spot feels like a natural extension of what makes the game so compelling to begin with.

 

"[For Skate], we were making a skating game first and foremost; we wanted to make sure that was right. In the time that we had to get the game out, we wanted to make sure that the skating was perfect -- and as a result, we decided not to focus on off-board stuff at the time," DeLong says. "Obviously, [that freedom] is a big part of Skate 2. You can take it and create your own lines and customize your environment to create your perfect, ideal skating experience. [We're] creating a great toy that allows people to express themselves."

 

Hopefully, that creative element will be a big part of multiplayer -- after all, player-created content is all the rage these days, and who doesn't want to snap their spine trying to nail a trick in their buddy's impossible obstacle course? During our meeting with the team, there was also some talk that Skate 2's multiplayer could follow the excellent drop-in-and-play model employed by EA's Burnout: Paradise -- and while Black Box was tight-lipped about any such confirmation, the team did say that those were "some very good ideas."

 

A few other curious items sprang up later in the demonstration, including something called Slappy's Blog (Slappy ran a skate shop in Skate) and a "Use Phone" option in the session marker menu -- a session marker allows you to easily retry a run by transporting you straight to your chosen location. The idea of being able to set multiple session markers around the city came up during our presentation, and a phone would seem like a pretty good way to go about it. Lastly, Black Box says that Skate 2 will take full advantage of the various horrific injuries you can inflict upon unwitting skaters -- some of whom I watched tucked into a cannonball of sorts as they flew through the air. In short, you should fully expect some body-mangling minigames to be woven into the experience.

 

But Skate 2 has its fair share of expected -- and some pleasantly surprising -- sequel-y additions. The first game is gorgeous, but Skate 2 looks even better. It has more detailed character models, more vivid colors, and stunning lighting and shadows. Better still, the new waterfront and woodsy hills areas are welcome aesthetic departures from the more traditional city and suburban settings of the first Skate (those locations are still there, but they've been rebuilt and rethought for better use of their square footage). The game's been upgraded to a supersmooth 60 frames per second, which -- as in other sports games -- does affect the feel and visual motion. It's a subtle change, but it's an impressive one considering how good everything already looks. Another change that Black Box will implement is to tilt the camera up slightly when you're near stairs to better lead you to possible routes through the environment.

 

Skate had an excellent debut last year with its innovative, completely fresh action-sports experience. So as far as first impressions go, Skate 2 may come off as a too-soon, not-different-enough sequel simply by virtue of being a sequel to something so fundamentally new and exciting. It's really much too early to call, but things are coming together for a dynamite follow-up -- even if that only means fixing Skate's handful of problems and building on what was already there. The seeds of potentially bigger changes are also in place, especially in the Grab the World functionality and its theoretical multiplayer applications. If Black Box can deliver on these initial ideas and top it off with a little something extra, they may have something truly gnarly on their hands.

[SchizoidFreud]

Full Q&A With Producer Jason DeLong

 

1UP: How do you make a sequel to a game that's praised for its innovation -- where do you start?

 

Jason DeLong: Good question. I think for us the most important thing was to recognize that we didn't do everything that we wanted to do with the original Skate. Flickit controls -- we were really happy with them, it was something that was an innovation that we were really proud of, but we knew it was just the tip of the iceberg as far as what we could do. So for us, where we started with was "what's the new gameplay, what more can we do with the Flickit controls?"...I think we've got a fantastic evolution of the Flickit controls from the original game. We don't have an official tag-name for it, but I call it the evolution of Flickit, because what we were able to do with the original Skate was take the controls off of the face buttons -- let's have a more innovative, intuitive skateboard feeling with the controls. Now we're able to take that as a base and combine things together, combine grabs and flips, combine taking your foot off the board with grabbing, and essentially double our tricks from what we had in Skate 1.

 

1UP: And you can get off the board now...

 

JD: Yeah, for us it's [something] that we wanted to do in the first game, but the focus for us was that we were making a skateboarding game first and foremost, so we wanted to make sure that was right. In the time that we had to get the game out, we wanted to make sure the skating was perfect, and as a result we decided not to focus on off-board at the time. Obviously that's a big part of Skate 2, getting off the board and being able to actually modify your environment. The thing for us is, getting off the board is great for getting up stairs and navigation, but what more can you do with it? We started talking about having objects in the world you can actually grab and move around. The idea is that anything that doesn't look like it's bolted down is movable. You can take it, you can create your own lines, you can customize your environment to create your perfect, ideal Skate experience.

 

1UP: That's part of the game, then, not a totally optional thing? That will actually be incorporated into the structure?

 

JD: Yeah. I think what we did with the original Skate and are doing with Skate 2 as well is creating a great toy, that allows people to express themselves. Obviously as we get into the challenges and the progression of the game, we're going to utilize this feature in a way that's cool and innovative, but at the same time it also allows people to just do whatever they want to do. Skate.reel being as popular as it was, we had over a million uploads from the original Skate, now that we're adding in this extra toy for people to play with -- I can't wait to see what people are going to come up with.

 

1UP: Is it going to work better on the website in terms of being able to more easily access the videos?

 

JD: Yeah, it's...the nature of any game that becomes a sequel, you have to look at what were your shortcomings in the first game, and how can you improve them? Both inside the game and the experience of the game. So for us, obviously that's something we're looking closely at for Skate 2, making sure that flow is more dialed-in, it's a much more seamless process for people to be able to get in and see what they've done, what they've created, and share it with their friends.

 

1UP: Have you guys considered being able to have it go straight to YouTube, or something that's accessible immediately for anybody, or was it always through the EA site?

 

JD: There's always tricky channels that you have to go through when you're dealing with that kind of stuff, so for now the focus is on, let's make sure that we can make this accessible and make sure that it's really dead-easy for people to get to their stuff. From there, people will do with it what they will, but for us it's just making sure that we at least provide the tool for people to get access on the web.

 

Skate, it could get to the point where I only had one or two different objectives open to do in the career, and when those were too difficult I would get stuck for a while. I know that kind of turned some people off midway through, is that going to be more avoidable? I know you said there was more to do generally this time...

 

JD: Well, that's never the intention or the ideal when that kind of thing happens...as I said, you recognize the shortcomings when you're working on a sequel. I think we've come up with a pretty good solution for the career and the progression in Skate 2. We're doing a lot more this year, more details are coming up.

 

1UP: The environments seem pretty different, too. You have the hills that we saw -- it seems generally pretty different aesthetically and structurally, is that a good example of the cross-section of stuff that we'll see?

 

JD: One of the great things you can do with a sequel is you can learn from what people thought of the original game, so what we did with the environment in Skate 2 is, we love San Vanelona, we love the city of San Vanelona, but we obviously don't want to put out Skate 1.5 that's the same city with some new stuff in it. It was really important to us to create a whole new experience. So for us, we've fabricated this concept of a disaster that's essentially leveled San Vanelona, and as a result it had to be rebuilt from scratch. We've got a completely new environment this year, that's on the aesthetic side. Then on the actual gameplay side, we're able to see what people are doing with Skate.reel, see what people like, see what kind of obstacles and things are being uploaded that people really like skating, like showing off, and make sure we populate the world with lots of that stuff, get lots of feedback on the message boards -- "I loved this part of the world," "I had trouble with this part of the world." We can use that feedback to help custom create the new world to be a much more enjoyable experience for everybody.

 

1UP: And it runs at 60 frames a second now.

 

JD: Yeah, we're really excited about that now, it's one of the things that...it's sort of a next-gen catchphrase, running at 60fps, but for us, I think it's vital, for not just the look of the game but the feel of the game. When you're running at 60 the game feels much more fluid, there's such a direct connection between what you're doing and what you're seeing on the screen, because it's just instantaneous. The 60 frames allows us to do that.

 

1UP: Is that extending to multiplayer?

 

JD: Absolutely, that's the goal.

 

1UP: What did you think about Tony Hawk taking a year off, what was your reaction?

 

JD: It's interesting, I don't think we ever...we didn't get into this to say, oh, let's try and bury another game. For us, there was a skateboarding game out there, it did well, people liked playing it, but we had a different thing we wanted to do and we did. The end result was, I guess we sold a little better than them, but ultimately it's a business decision on their end, I don't know if it's anything that we did that caused that, it's a business we're in, right? They made one game, we made another game, these guys decided to wait for a little while to release their next one, and we're putting ours out when it's ready.

 

1UP: That's a modest answer. My first thought was, "If Skate 2 is made in a year, year and a half...they're going to drive this into the ground." EA's associated with this too, so how do you guys allay those fears early, of this just becoming Tony Hawk, which is exactly what Skate was praised for, -- not being that -- being something brand new and innovative, how do you avoid that?

 

JD: I think we just stick to what got us here. Like you say, we were praised for being innovative and maybe outside the mold of what people expect from our company, and I think the company as a whole is surprising people more and more these days, which is a great place to be at now. But back to the Skate question, for us it was, inevitably as a game is successful there will be a sequel to it, that's why we have Halo 3s and Grand Theft Auto IVs. So for us it's not about churning out a sequel right away to make some money, it's about, okay, what's the evolution of this game, what are we gonna do next? We'll do it in the time that it's gonna take to get that done, realize that visualization, as opposed to trying to get it out in an ideal window for making money.

 

1UP: It sounds like you're confident that this is not just going to be Halo 3, where it's...more functionality, but not more innovation. You're saying this is both.

 

JD: Skate 2 is epic. Skate 2 is, I don't wanna give you a multiplier, but it's bigger than Skate 1. It's...hard to contain the messaging of all the new stuff that we're doing, so we're being deliberately cryptic right now, because we have so much to talk about we don't want to overwhelm people with all the features, we'll be able to appreciate each feature as it comes in.

 

1UP: It's still all in one (physical) area?

 

JD: It's New San Vanelona, so it's five years later, you're in this new city, so it is contained as far as that's concerned, it's the open-world concept we had in the original Skate, but yeah, Skate 2 is epic, it's going to be a huge game.

 

1UP: And you'd mentioned that the character you play as, the character's been gone for those five years, some sort of mysterious thing?

JD: Yeah, not willing to open the kimono on that one, as we say, but yeah, essentially, it's five years later, you're returning to New San Vanelona, the face of the city has changed, and you've been away for five years, for unknown reasons.

 

1UP: Is this like the Hulk, where you're hiding in the jungles of South America and the government comes and brings you back?

 

JD: I'm not going to give it away yet. [chuckles]

 

1UP: So the first one did a really good job of incorporating a lot of skate culture, but toeing the line between still being accessible, and also not -- for the most part -- having cringe-worthy skater-talk. How much is this still incorporating skate culture, are you opening it up more...

 

JD: It's the first thing on our mind whenever we think of anything new for the game, it really is. What we wanted to do, we've got a lot of skaters on the team, people who are friends with professionals, people who are former professional skateboarders -- skate culture is what this team is based on. To be frank, skate culture is one that's used to being incorporated, that's why you get fruit-punch drinks that are branded with being "extreme," having cartoon skateboarders on them. That's obviously not what we're about. For us, we're completely respectful of the culture, we know we owe a great debt of gratitude for allowing us to have this toy we've created, and our goal originally was to...not appropriate the skate culture, but kind of become part of the skate culture. I think we've succeeded, I think we're quite well-respected within the skate community, we've got a lot of pro skaters who are in the game, last year, and people who were calling us up to get in the game this year, because they love what we did and they think we got it right. We're really proud of that.

 

1UP: As far as the basic game mechanics, you said the camera's been tweaked a little. I was curious about the very basic mechanical changes, because it fundamentally works, the basic level of skating. There was a bit of a learning curve in the original Skate, but it turned out really well. So what kind of tweaks have you guys made to that basic setup?

 

JD: You don't want to mess with things too much, you obviously want to correct the things that either didn't come out quite as well as you thought or you get feedback on that people weren't as pleased with as you hoped they would be. So that's the kind of stuff we want to address first and foremost. If it's a winning formula, you don't mess with it too much. So when I talk about camera changes, we're not making massive changes to the camera system, it's just, there's a couple of little bugs in there we wish that we'd done a little better, we're going to make sure those are right. There was some feedback from people who thought that what we felt was the authentic, skate-video-feeling camera that's down close to the ground, a lot of people loved that about our game, it's one of the core game things that made us feel authentic, but it wasn't for everyone. For the few people who didn't like it, we're going to offer some options that allow them to play the game differently.

 

1UP: Is it going to be a more traditional third-person camera?

 

JD: Yeah, we're toying with that as well. For us, the feel of the game is in that authenticity, making it feel like a skate video, and we're going to stick to our guns on that, we really believe that, but we absolutely don't want to limit people's choices. If they don't agree with us on that, but they still want to try our game out, we'll give them options to do that as well.

 

1UP: For the video editor, tease some sort of functionality! I know you guys aren't talking about it...but I want a free-floating camera, I'll just say it now...

 

JD: What can I tell you...there were some shortcomings in Skate 1, and the message boards have given us a lot of great notes on what people want, and we're going to do our best to address those.

 

1UP: What message boards do you guys hang out on?

 

JD: We look at our own skate.EA boards, our forums, there's tons of stuff there. One thing that's great about our culture is that we keep that alive, everyone knows Cuz -- Cuz is one of our producers on our team, he's on the blogs nightly, continually writing on the blogs and updating producer diaries. Keeping people who are in the skate community happy. Obviously that's a big one, and there are some other great sites, on more than one site there's a Skate 2 thread, like "what do you want to see in Skate 2?" and obviously that's something that we pay a lot of attention to, because we want to do what people...what we believe is right, obviously, but we want to make sure that we're staying tuned in to what our consumers want as well.

 

1UP: I know Skate uses the balance board on Wii, and there's rumors now that the next Tony Hawk is going to use some sort of balance peripheral on 360 and PS3 -- is this something you guys ever considered at all, I'm curious about your thoughts on that.

 

JD: You know, I don't really have a comment on it. For us, we're focusing...for us Wii is where the balance board lives. The original Skate and Skate 2 was based on the Flickit controls, and that's where we want to keep our focus.

 

1UP: So if Tony Hawk comes out and the board happens to be compatible with Skate, then just a happy coincidence, I guess?

 

JD: Happy coincidence, yes.

 

1UP: The security guards kind of got in the way at times, what are you guys doing to address that?

 

JD: Again, you always recognize some shortcomings, and yes, the fact that our pedestrians were not the smartest in the world caused some frustration for a lot of people, and for us as well. That's one of the first things we looked at when we started work on this, let's make people smarter, let's let them get out of your way, let's not let them inhibit your experience of skating. And once that's done, what else can we do to make them interesting? Make them smart first, then make them interesting.

 

1UP: That sounds like you may have some interaction, like with the security guards...

 

JD: We're doing what we can to make it interesting.

[SchizoidFreud]

What Should Be In Skate 2

 

The amount of times I said to myself “Skate 2 is going to be awesome” was ridiculous. That’s not to say the original was a bad game because it was far from it but there was room for improvement. Here’s what should be in Skate 2…

 

Walking

 

Often while cruising along you would fine a nice looking spot to trick down. The game would then make you Ollie up it for no reason when a normal person could just step off the board and walk onto the ledge. Thats why the ability to walk and climb would prove to be indispensable. Fine this didn’t do to much to Tony Hawk’s but Skate is much more of a chilled out kind of a game where walking would fit in perfectly.

 

Refined Trick Stick

 

The way you perform tricks in the world of Skate is a key factor in what makes Skate pop but sometimes it was a bit too picky. It needs to be heavily redefined so that it’s easier to pull off the right tricks when it asks you to. I guess some of the skill will be taken away but there are ways around that.

 

Technical Improvements - Frame Rates

 

This applies more to the Playstation 3 version instead of it’s 360 counterpart but there were frame rate issues. This seems like a little problem but it greatly effected the Playstation 3’s rendition.

 

Technical Improvements - Loading Times

 

Although something that effected both versions indefinitely were the load times. There was a good 90 second wait before you even got to the menu and once in the game you would really ride your luck on using stunt markers because it was really hit and miss. I don’t know the math but say you where 10 meters away from your stunt marker, you would be fine. But if you stepped over to say 12 meters you would have to sit watching for another 30 seconds when it would have been quicker to skate back.

 

More Tricks

 

It wasn’t that there was a shortage of tricks or anything but there is something wrong when you can do backflips and 900’s but you can’t do any lip or flatland tricks. Alright, maybe you could do some lip tricks but you couldn’t do any hand-plants or anything especially fancy and the addition of flatland would make for some nice transition’s while in between rails and jumps.

 

In-Depth Story

 

The story was realistic and it fit the purpose and the last thing this game needs is a villain of some description. All I’m saying is that it needs to be bigger and better and have more of a storyline instead of skate this, win that. It seemed a bit weird having a long intro where something happened to your character but it was hardly ever mentioned throughout the rest of the game. As long as they keep it believable it will do fine.

 

Custom Clothing & Boards

 

Really this could be summed up with the simple phrase ‘Make it like Forza’. Although every game needs something like this, custom clothing and board designs would make each character unique online and add that extra level of customization. Adding this might take away the fact that I wanted to buy more clothes and update my characters look and thats the first time anything like that has happened in a long while. Although I still retain the fact that if allowed to create clothing and gear, I would tweak my character even more.

 

With pretty much every review ending in ‘the sequel will be awesome’, Skate 2 has a lot of expectation but with a few of these ideas and a few surprises, Skate 2 could be the game that the original always wanted to be. Buttery.

[SchizoidFreud]

Skate 2 Preview: The Next Logical Step

 

A few months back we posted an article about what should be seen in Skate 2. As avidly blatant fanboys we got way to excited for the flood of information that EA have recently released and finally get to see what improvements they will actually implement.

 

Skate 2 now takes place in New San Vanelona that has been re-built after a disaster. We weren’t told but we speculate that this is the same disaster that strikes the city in the upcoming Wii & Ds game, Skate It. Your character from the original disappeared shortly after winning skater of the year. Now five years later San Van has been locked down from putting caps on rails so you can’t grind to putting “No Skating” signs everywhere. San Vanelona needs help to be turned back into the skate heaven it once was.

 

That might not be the most compelling story but it’s better than the original and the story isn’t the reason people played Skate. The innovative controls did that and it looks like they will expand further on that. Now you’ll be able to land hand-plants and nail lip-tricks while skating in a bowl. There was also a whole phenomenon of Hippie Jumps on the online community stemming from the original Skate. A Hippie Jump is where the board goes under the rail but you go over and this was achieved in the original Skate by the medium of a glitch yet now it will be pulled of a lot easier by simply pressing the feet buttons (A & X) while in the air. These tricks combined with the other one hundred that will be added to the game probably won’t reinvent the wheel but it will make it rounder.

 

Skate 2 will also allow you to ‘grab the world’. This lets you move around different obstacles, live in-game, to create your own custom line fully suited to your style or skill level. You can’t move around larger, stuck down obstacles but you can move smaller things that would realistically be movable to reach hidden challenges that would be on roof tops and higher, harder to reach areas.

 

Finally but most certainly not least, another addition is that you can actually get off your board now. In one of the additions we were most rooting for, you’ll now be able to climb up and over obstacles to then skate off them. The amount of times we’ve bailed when trying to get back onto the street was ridiculous so this is a pleasant and worthy upgrade.

 

There were loads of features rumoured like multiple session markers, Grab The World online and most promisingly the addition of Burnout Paradise style drop in drop out multiplayer. None of this is yet to be confirmed but they all make so much logical sense it would be dumb not to.

 

Visually the game has been improved while displaying a fuller colour palette, an impressive 60 frames per second frame rate and smaller camera tweaks such as the camera moving out to show a better angle when you are manoeuvring up stairs. None has been announced as far as sound or music goes but the original had fantastic sound design so I’d expect more of the same.

 

It appears that so far we correctly guessed four out of seven updates suggested for Skate 2. While custom skatewear, faster load times & a refined trick system all make for obvious updates that could be revealed at a later date. It seems that the whole thing about how good Skate 2 will be compared to the slightly flawed while brilliant original might turn out to be true if what we’ve seen is anything to go by.

[SchizoidFreud]

Skate 2 Preview

 

The first Skate took many by surprise when it burst onto the scene last year. In a genre that had been dominated by Tony Hawk games for nearly a decade, there didn’t seem to be a lot of room for newcomers. By taking a decidedly different approach than its competitor, Skate had almost everyone but Tony touting that it was grrreat. With the Tony Hawk franchise taking a year off to rethink some things, Skate 2 looks to take this opportunity to build upon the immense success of the first title and to further cement EA’s skateboarding series as a serious contender.

 

Players will be able to skate the streets of the reimagined city of New San Vanelona in this upcoming title. While it is still technically the same city from the first game, much has changed in the five years that separate these two games’ events. After some sort of disaster destroyed much of San Vanelona, the city was inexplicably rebuilt with better skateboarding in mind. This results in a somewhat familiar yet mostly fresh backdrop with plenty of surprises. The biggest change comes in two completely new areas, a wooded mountain region as well as a waterfront section.

 

The waterfront area comes loaded with tons of benches, ramps, and rails that can be used to rack up some fairly elaborate tricks. The waterfront is also an incredibly beautiful location, with some great architecture and blue tiles immediately demanding your eye’s attention. The mountains seemed slightly less impressive visually but easily made up for this by providing some excellent rural skateboarding opportunities. Aside from grinding guide rails and picnic tables, the mountain area was also home to an all new event that was recently shown for the first time.

 

While the name for the event type wasn’t given, this event looks to directly attack yet another Tony Hawk franchise. For anyone who has happened to play Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam, this event should seem rather familiar. Players were able to race down the mountainside against three opponents, with the fastest finisher collecting the lion’s share of a previously placed bet. Momentum and speed are extremely important in this event, with tricks and style becoming mostly an afterthought. The faster you careen down the mountainside, the harder it becomes to land tricks properly. Fortunately, the racing felt rather natural and the course provided a plethora of alternative routes and shortcuts just waiting to be discovered by observant players.

 

Skate 2’s environments, while newly redesigned, may not be completely finished. This is thanks largely to a couple new additions. This game will allow players to get off of their board and explore the world on foot for the first time. The walking controls were noticeably clunky, but this game is still fairly early in development and will likely address this issue. While on foot, players will be able to walk up stairs and, more importantly, set up their own tricks. By using the Grab the World button (Xbox 360=RB and PS3=R1) players can take hold of just about anything that isn’t bolted down and position it in any way they wish. This allows for complete customization of skate parks and for some really interesting and ingenious tricks. Thankfully, after you’ve gotten everything situated just how you like it, most areas in the game will also remain the way you leave them.

 

Whether in a custom skate park or just skating around the prebuilt New San Vanelona, players are also given some new tricks to further spice up the gameplay. The Grab the World button doubles as a handplant when near an edge that can be grabbed. Players are also given the ability to do hippie jumps and foot plants, which effectively double the possible tricks from the original Skate. Hippie jumps have players leaping from their board to clear objects such as benches and rails, then landing safely (in theory) back on their board. These are performed by pressing the two feet buttons together, while holding and releasing these buttons will make for a larger leap. Successfully pulling off a hippie jump is fun but watching the bail animations caused by messing up the timing is also incredibly entertaining.

 

Foot plants are also fun to perform and really add depth and style to this game’s tricks. When doing any trick while grabbing your board, pressing either of the foot buttons will cause your character to plant the corresponding foot on the ground and then push off for just a little more airtime. This can help you finish some tricks that would otherwise result in slamming your head off of the pavement. Foot plants also serve as a highly stylized combo link for many long tricks. An example would be grinding a rail, jumping to a picnic table, foot planting from the table to clear another rail, and finishing the trick by landing on a ramp.

 

Although it is still early in development, Skate 2 is already looking fairly beautiful and mostly functions well. There was some noticeable pop-in visible in many of the environments’ backgrounds, but this will likely get addressed by the time this game reaches the market. Running at sixty frames per second, the game controlled smoothly and is host to some impressive lighting effects to boot. The game’s camera has also received some attention, with the original angle being slightly tweaked and a more traditional third-person perspective has been added as an option for players.

 

While the game is likely a ways off from being released and EA is remaining silent about several aspects, Skate 2 is still shaping up rather well. It already plays great (minus the on-foot exploration), looks fantastic, and has many interesting additions that act as icing on the cake. With the next Tony Hawk game being noticeably absent this year, Skate 2 is poised to completely dominate the skateboarding genre of games for the foreseeable future. By the time Tony makes it back to the market, the battle for the throne may already be all but over if this game is being used as a measuring stick.

 

Game Features:

1. Skate the all new San Vanelona, completely redesigned following a disaster.
   
2. Change up your tricks with the addition of the hippie jump and foot plants.
   
3. Get off your board for the first time in the series and start customizing trick lines with the new Grab the World button.
   

[SchizoidFreud]

If You Never Played ‘Skate,’ Should You Care About ‘Skate 2′?

 

I haven’t played more than five minutes of Electronic Arts‘ highly praised “Skate.”

 

Being the only reporter for MTV Multiplayer in San Francisco, I’m used to seeing many games in genres unfamiliar to me. “Skate” is in that pile.

 

Yet I found myself at EA’s coming out event for “Skate 2″ last Thursday. I’d loaded up the demo for “Skate” just minutes before walking out the door. I barely made it through the tutorial.

 

Given that, if you (like me) haven’t played “Skate,” should “Skate 2″ be on your radar? Absolutely. We both probably should have played “Skate,” anyway.

 

Here’s what matters and what doesn’t about the new game…

 

 

There are no major revelations to the core “Skate” gameplay in the sequel. It’s an evolution. People at the event seemed jazzed about the ability to get off the skateboard. A few non-”Skate” players I mentioned this to wonder if that’s what made “Tony Hawk” jump the shark, but I don’t think that’s the case here. It’s meant to allow players to navigate the environment more easily.

 

Given my lack of experience with the series, I didn’t have many questions for the “Skate” team. I mostly watched, listened, observed. I asked others at the event what they thought. Folks who had been privy to an even earlier version of the game for print coverage said “Skate 2″ was already looking leaps and bounds better visually. It still looked rough, but my guess is the guys at development studio Black Box are more concerned with nailing the gameplay right now, and that seems more than appropriate for their strategy with “Skate 2.”

 

One thing I did wonder about, however, was the inability to export your self-captured skate sessions to a service other than EA’s own online video hub. With “Spore” incorporating support for YouTube, might “Skate 2″ benefit from that partnership? No one at the event was talking, though they acknowledged fan’s requests for it. It didn’t seem likely, though.

 

Oh, and in case you were wondering, you can (finally) be a female skater.

 

As for me, despite having passed on “Skate,” my limited time with the sequel has me interested to see if the series can hook me the same way the original “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” games did.

[SchizoidFreud]

Giant Bomb's Skate 2 Preview

 

The original skate--lowercase on purpose because it's the e.e. cummings of video games--was mechanically awesome. It turned the world of skateboarding games upside down with its compelling new control scheme and robust in-game video editor. The game design that was wrapped around those terrific mechanics, however, often didn't exploit the game's strengths properly. There are two specific examples I can think of that made me want to toss Skate (let's be mature about this name capitalization stuff for the rest of the article) into the street.

 

- The later, more difficult games of S.K.A.T.E. asked you to do very specific advanced tricks. Even though I was quite good at the rest of the game, I never felt that the right-stick's "flick it" trick system was specific enough to allow you to nail an exact trick at any given time. I eventually gave up on that challenge.

 

- Another was a specific Hall of Meat challenge. These asked you to find a way to bail properly and break a set amount of bones in the process. This particular challenge had you barrel down a hill at breakneck speed, then hit an incline and go flying into a tall tree, where you were supposed to break yourself up reeeeeallll baaaad. I think I did this for around two hours with absolutely no indication of what I was doing wrong. After two hours of flinging myself into this stupid tree, it suddenly rung up as successful, without anything that I was doing looking any different at all.

 

I think they call those "negative user experiences." Maybe someone out there got good enough with the right stick controls to nail every trick, every time. But after 20 hours or more with the game, shouldn't a reasonable person (which I often pretend to be) be able to do that sort of thing? Also, I'm sure that at least one of you got that tree goal on your first try... and for that I hate you.

 

My main worry about Skate 2, EA's full-fledged sequel, is that nothing will be done to avoid either of those situations. Since EA hasn't started talking about the goal structure, it's impossible to know for sure. But at the same time, the team at EA Black Box have made some really intelligent changes to the skating mechanics that make even the pre-alpha version of the game we were shown at a recent event look terrific.

 

The control changes are mostly enhancements of the existing controls, letting you do more stuff with the same buttons--specifically the foot buttons. You can work the two buttons used for kicking to involve your feet in various tricks. This allows for one-footed grinds, and so on. Hitting and releasing both kick buttons lets you perform hippie jumps, which is where you jump up in the air, off the skateboard, preferably allowing you to jump over a rail while your board rolls under it. If you hit a foot button right before landing, you'll pop a foot out, kick off the ground, and back up into the air a little bit, letting you do judo plants and stuff like that.

 

You can work your hands into more tricks, too. So if you're in the middle of a grind, you can hit one of the grab buttons to grab the board. If you're holding a grab button while trying to ollie, you'll perform a beanplant.

 

There's also a new button used in tricks, referred to as "grab the world." It's R1 on PS3 and RB on 360, and it's currently used to easily perform handplants. The developers say it'll be worked into other scenarios, but weren't too forthcoming on where else you'd be able to use it. You can combine handplants with the feet buttons to do one-footers and such.

 

The other big new thing that EA was showing off is the ability to get off your board, which made all of us a little wary, since that was one of those "beginning of the end" moves when it was introduced in the Tony Hawk series. Once off your board you can drop the skateboard anywhere you like, which doesn't currently factor into gameplay, but it sounds like you might be able to drop the board somewhere, run up, and jump onto it to start skating in the final game. Once off your board, you can start screwing around with the environment by moving around, as they stated, "anything that doesn't look bolted down." In the demo I saw, that included small ramps, picnic tables, and rails. This lets you set up your own lines. Hopefully the game doesn't turn into some kind of puzzle game where you're spending more time figuring out how to arrange parts than you are skating.

 

Other than the new gameplay stuff and the ability to create female skaters, EA isn't saying too much more about the game other than the basic setting. Skate 2 takes place five years after the original game. A disaster of some kind has hit San Vanelona and ripped most of it apart. You'll be able to skate the ripped up SV in the Wii game, Skate It. But Skate 2 takes place in New San Vanelona, which sounds sort of like New Detroit or Delta City or whatever in RoboCop. A corporation has come in and rebuilt the city, so most of it will look pristine and new. And the last thing they want is for some skater to come in and grind on it. So you can probably expect some sort of increased security force presence and a storyline that pits you against "The Man."

 

Visually, Skate 2 has a very similar look to the original game. The key difference is that the game will run at 60 frames per second on both the 360 and PS3. Both versions already appear to be well on their way to that goal, which should be a relief to PS3 players, who got a lower frame rate than their 360-based brethren last time around. The Skate Reel recording feature will return with some new things to play around with. Skate 2 will also contain a smattering of pro skaters, including Rob Dyrdek, Lucas Puig, and John Cardiel.

 

After playing it for myself, the enhancements to the trick system feel great and open up a whole new world of potential for connecting tricks and doing crazy stuff. Hopefully the game that gets wrapped around those tricks comes together just as well. Skate 2 currently doesn't have a release date beyond "when it's done," but considering how deep EA's holiday lineup already is and the lateness with which EA is showing off a pre-alpha version, it seems safe to assume we won't be seeing it this year.

[SchizoidFreud]

Skate 2 Game Play Trailer

[SchizoidFreud]

New Screens

 

 

 

 

 

[SchizoidFreud]

1UP FM Interview on Skate 2

 

We chat up Skate 2 with EA Black Box's Jay Balmer, tackle the next next generation of systems with Simon Cox and Sam Kennedy, hit the Top 5 worst-dressed gaming characters with resident fashion mogul Shane Bettenhausen, introduce yet another new 1UPper on Insert Disc, and rock the Psychonauts Backlog like no one else can!

 

Go here to listen to the episode, or if you're a savvy, well-read individual who knows their way around an internet, subscribe to us via iTunes.

[Somebody]

Skate 2 Gamespot First Hands-On

We roll through a new vision of San Vanelona armed with a vastly expanded bag of tricks.

 

 

It was just short of a year ago that EA Black Box introduced us to Skate, a game whose excellent controls and stylish reverence for skateboard culture took nearly everyone by surprise. Now, Black Box continues to defy expectations by taking its sweet time with Skate 2, a startling decision considering the first game both sold well and had the letters "E" and "A" stamped side-by-side on its packaging. With plenty of breathing room and no release date in sight, hopes are understandably high as the team strives to build upon an impressive debut. And now that we've had our first look at Skate 2, we've seen all the makings of a game that should meet those expectations.

 

With the ability to grab the environment around you, handplants are now a possibility.

 

For as much praise as Skate earned, it could have very easily crashed and burned as a result of the risky "flick-it" controls the game introduced. It was a system that shirked traditional button inputs in favor of a dual-analog control scheme that used the right stick to mimic the sweeping gestures of a skater's feet and the left stick to guide more general body movement. These flick-it controls certainly had a learning curve to overcome, but the end result was a fresh and rewarding experience--the closest a game has come to putting you on the maple plywood of a real skateboard.

 

This time around, Black Box isn't so afraid of those buttons on the controller. The core mechanics of the first game are still in place, but now an entirely new trick system has been layered over it with the ability to grab terrain and take one foot or both feet off the board. The ability to latch onto obstacles works the easiest. Most of the time, you'll find yourself using it to pull off handplants on the lip of a ramp or bowl. You skate up as you normally would to air out, but just before you go airborne, you can press a button (R1 or RB, depending on your platform of choice) to perform an old-school handplant. These can be tweaked with the right stick, just like grabs from the first game, and you can even take a foot off the board by using the same two buttons you would use to push on land (again, the square and X with a PlayStation 3 controller, or X and A on the Xbox 360).

 

That ability to take your foot off the board works its way into other scenarios. One way is by performing a boneless. While on ground, you hold one of the grab buttons and combine it with a foot button to plant a shoe on the ground then take off with a hand on the board. The same button combination produces a similar result when performed while already in the air. You can do it to foot tap anything from the lip of a bowl to a railing while en route to the ground. Another option is to simply press both feet buttons to hippie jump over something--the combination of leaping off your board to go over an obstacle while the board goes under.

 

Other new options include the ability to flip the board with your hand, do one-foot airs, and grab your board while in the process of grinding. While many of these moves can be classified as mere embellishments compared to the strong foundation of flip tricks and grinds the first game established, they should add plenty of depth and style to your bag of tricks. And even though a lot of them are quirky old-school moves, like the flick-it controls, they just make sense. Putting your left hand on the board or taking your right foot off it is always done with the same two buttons; nothing seems shoehorned into the control scheme despite all the new combinations. The one downer is that the already tough learning curve will only continue to grow, but because the original controls have been preserved as the bottom layer in this stratified system, you can simply work your way up one technique at a time.

 

Two new features: female skaters and the downhill mountain area.

 

Setting yourself up for new lines should be much easier this time around. Whereas the first game superglued your feet to the board, taunting you with beautiful rails at the top of a towering stair set, this time around, you can press triangle or Y to hop off the board and simply walk to the start of your ideal line. While off the board, you can also use the aforementioned "grab obstacles" button to take hold of a variety of objects that are not bolted to the ground--benches, picnic tables, rails--and move them around to create a new line. We can't tell you how much fun we had dragging a rail up the sloped walkway flanking a halfpipe as we attempted to defy physics by airing out and landing a boardslide down the thing. We should note that the ability to get off your board was particularly rough in this early build--making it feel more like a proof of concept than a full-blown feature--but we can see where Black Box is going with it, and we like it.

 

Skate 2 returns to the setting of the original game, the three-headed-beast combination of San Francisco, Vancouver, and Barcelona known simply as San Vanelona. This time around, a mysterious disaster has taken its toll on the city, leaving a thoroughly altered urban landscape in its wake. Much of San Van has been rebuilt, a lot of it has been done away with, and now it's blessed with the name New San Vanelona. What does this odd design decision mean for anyone who doesn't particularly care for civil engineering? The short answer is that we can expect to see a brand new open-world environment that maintains the same characters and overall atmosphere as the original city.

 

Three unique demo stations were on hand to display three new districts. The boldest departure is the new mountain area, a state park-like environment with evergreen trees and steep, windy roads perfectly suited for downhill competitions. Another new area is the waterfront. Although concept art for the first game suggested the city was ostensibly set on the water, we never got to see that portion of the city. But now, you'll be able to cruise through the modern architecture of this beachfront promenade with the water no more than a stone's throw away. And finally, there's the new high-rise projects neighborhood. This dense crush of buildings provides plenty of opportunity for big drops and big bails, with a run-down appearance that should give the city some grimy authenticity.

 

 

Character models are more fleshed out this time around.

 

Even though these new areas look great--particularly the intimidating views afforded by the mountain's roadside cliffs--the visual upgrades extend beyond new scenery. Character models (including the new female skater options) look more detailed than before, while the wipeout animations have been given a much-needed boost in realism. Things were fine in the first Skate when you were on your board, but if you so much as clipped a bench, it would result in your character going strangely limp, only to greet the concrete with no objections whatsoever. Now you'll see your character flail during high drops, brace himself for impact, and kick out his board when a landing seems impossible. Considering the steep learning curve of the control system, these new touches should give newcomers an entertaining show while they learn the ropes. And it all plays out in 60 frames per second, double that of the previous game.

 

This was the most we could squeeze out of our first look at Skate 2. Details on the mission structures, video editor, and community features are all still under wraps. We couldn't even pry away a release date for the game--the best we could manage was a "before summer of next year" response from executive producer Scott Blackwood. It's a long wait for Skate fans, but with these new additions, we're banking that it'll be worth it.

[SchizoidFreud]

Skate 2 Video Interview