Skate 3 First Look

Skate is one of those games that comes along and refreshes the way we look at a current genre and shows us how it can be done completely differently. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater made what the skateboarding video game genre is today, and thus dominated it for the last 10 years, but focus on it being an arcade type skateboarding game, with little in how you would really skateboard associated to it. But along comes Skate and shows that realism also works in skateboarding, making a kick-flip a trick you do have to think about pulling off rather than just a button combination.

I love the first two Skate games to be honest in that they don’t replace my first love that is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater but (and my second love) make a game that is about the realism and style of skateboarding. Using the style that you found in skateboarding videos to make the game look impressive, it earned a lot of respect. Any game that made itself difficult to score high but oh-so addictive deserves respect in a lot of rights!

So any way, on to the now!

I was invited, along with two others, to EAs offices in Guildford to try out a pre-alpha build of Skate 3. Greeted by EAs PR dude and two devs over from EA’s Vancouver studio, we sat down and watched the First Look trailer that only got released that morning.

In the middle of the room were 6 PS3 Test units, 3 on either side of the conference table. Two of us moved to one side of the room while the last one was on the other side. To even the teams up, the two devs took to either side of the table while EA’s PR dude took to the missing seat. We had a skate crew! Us, the Red Dragons and then the Blue Bunnies! All very affectionate.

Skate 3 progresses from the second Skate title; in that you were released from jail and went out to make it big. But now it’s time to setup a skate crew and make a name for your brand. It’s all about team work this time!

There is also a location change in Skate 3; you are no longer in the hostile, anti-skate city of New San Vanelona and in the skate-utopia that is Port Carverton. It’s a city that is built to welcome skaters, so there is no longer the need to find a perfect line or make it, but rather choose a line and alter it. Also, no more annoying security guys getting in your way, which did pester me greatly in the last two games.

So, back in the room we have a little play around with the controls before we get started. Nothing much has changed from what made Skate great in that it’s all about the style and not the insanely impossible tricks; just sidewalk surfing. We are then briefly told about a new move that allows you to do a underflip that can also be manipulated into doing a darkslide, a feature that has been missing from the previous two titles but will be a very welcomed addition!

Into our first team game; own the spot. A fun one to break the ice as we could all cock up lots and not worry about what others are doing. It’s a fun little romp that showed us that even the devs need to practice at their own game as I managed to gain the most points (the only time mind you!).

Second team game is a party “1Up” so it’s effectively “Horse” but the whole team has to work together to get points to set the score or beat the other teams. But it becomes difficult because if one person bails then your round ends early.

This is when a new mechanic became apparent; if you fall off your board, you don’t always bail but can recover with your pride minus the points. So in 1Up, you may loose the points you were building up, but you don’t loose the session for your team, a nice mechanic but you have to make sure you’re pointing the analog sticks in the correct direction! I didn’t quite suss out how to use this affectively, but with time I’m sure it becomes extremely valuable to know.

The devs have said this can cause many arguments as the whole team needs to work on the highest score and if you do bail then it’s could be your fault they all loose!

Next event is Death Race! Now this was featured more so in Skate 2 than it was in Skate, but I’m not sure if it was an online feature. This is about speed and racing, not scoring points so if you are like me, every jump you need to make you try to trick, then you’ll fail miserably when so far ahead! Oh the amount of mistakes I did by being cocky and trying to do flips; would of looked so impressive but I then lost it for the team. But it was fun to mess about doing a a coffin over the finish line… and when I say doing a coffin I mean laying back on the board not *ahem*.

Another mechanic that became noticable here was that there is no coalition detection. At first I felt this was a pre-alpha thing, but the devs said they will keep coalition off as all game modes benefit from not having two players knocking each other off. With the difficulty of the game and the manic pace of scoring points, this could be a good thing, but some players will feel it’s lacking. Could be more they rather not work in coalition detection due to the online issues, which is often understandable. But for the time being, there will be no coalition detection in the full game online (although I did notice there is coalition in free-play).

Final event is a odd one as much as it is fun, can be a little tricky to suss out what to do on a first go. Basically, you have a list of objectives to do in a given area, be it clear a gap over two cars, ride a particular rail or just score a set number of points on something specific. The thing here is it works a lot on team work, so the first team to clear all these objectives win; the key then being that you have to quickly decide within your team who does what as it only takes one memeber of the team to clear the objective for the whole team. This will require real communication between members as there is no point in all 3 members of the crew trying to clear the same gap, you’d rather 2 go off and do something else. Also, it works on strengths, so you need the strongest grider to do the grinding while your scorer does the scoring. Simple! It worked well in the single room situation where we could say “right, I’m going to hit those cars and you can ride that rail” but online, espcially with PS3 not being so voice active, it could turn into a bloody mess. But none-the-less, it was fun especially when both teams have one objective left, all on the same bit, and everybody is trying to hit it, it can get very tense because the first to land the trick wins the spot!

All in all, 90 minutes playing Skate 3 was a joyest experience. Hopefully this will build up a groups to play skate 3 online rather than your typical FPS games or strategy. There is very little in the way of co-op play in sports games that I see out there, but with Skate 3 all about the team play and rivals, it should make for an interesting game that does push into new areas once again. Okay, not so new, but to focus heavily on online team play and team play in general in a skateboarding game, name another that does it?

it’s worrying when a game hits it’s third generation as it’s getting close to becoming something of the same thing and quality starts to drop. But the guys behind Skate 3 seem to be thinking a little more and trying something new that will get people together. Games today need a way of getting more than one person playing; they need their multiplayer aspect. You look at the number of titles out there and how many of them try and include a second, third or more players in. It’s an important part of gaming today to be sociable, and with Skate 3, it seems that they are focusing a lot on sociable content; just need to look at what they did for the online community with Skate 2 and their video sharing feature to see they want to be able to have a skate community for those who can’t or choose not to skate in real life.

Skate 3 is a title to look out for, it’s not going stale despite the lack of new gaming style as it doesn’t need to, but rather it’s taken a fresh look at what it’s done and improved it. Seriously, if you want a good online skating game, then just wait till Skate 3 hits May next year.

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