Speed and style reminds me of Matt Hensley. And music is good, too. Apparently from a video “No Strings Attached”.

Mike Mo took the first one. Cole the second, bust just barely.

For S3 it looks like the Black Box team have broken new ground to bring you…skating with cigarette.

Dan Drehobl’s a great skater—who in interviews wishes he could quit smoking—but after playing the S3 demo, I wish whatever time was spent modeling his cigarette would’ve been squeezed into bringing back the feel of S1. Was Skate really missing darkslides, underflips, and an “easy” mode? The Skate world continues to look less like the real world and more skate park.

And what’s with killing the Skate Reel upload servers for a game only 3 years old? Can I get more bitter and nostalgic?

Asymmetrical skateboarding spots limit your trick options because, as a skater–even if you’re great at skating switchstance–you’re either regular or goofy foot. If there’s only one obvious direction to hit something from, you kind of lose half the available tricks to try on it. Flopped glasses couldn’t switch your natural skating stance, but they would let you see every spot as having a flopped equivalent, which is where the game developers come in.

Every 2 or 3-dimensional game should have a “flop map” option, which would flop the player’s map (but not the controls). This would be fairly trivial for the developer, but would give players double the (perceived) number of unique maps to play on. Obviously this is only interesting on asymmetrical maps like a city or a famous golf course–flopping most sport courts/fields wouldn’t have any real effect.

Another feature of the glasses: They would “correct” what you see in mirrors to be exactly what the world sees–parted hair/crooked teeth/wristwatch on the opposite side. Weird and awesome.

Along with fearlessness (healthy to a point), disregard for authority and the care for other peoples’ property is baked into the pop culture, and, although probably a very small percentage of skaters make any trouble, those that do make a real problem for cops trying to keep areas free of gangs of boys who want to emulate the pros in acts and attitude. Any criminologist will tell you the perfect recipe for crime is an unsupervised group of young males predisposed to rule-breaking.

So, unfortunately, incidents like this are common. On camera a cop threatens to brake the arm of a generally compliant but obviously tired kid. This is, of course, after the kid calmly calls the LEO a “fuckin’ dick” (twice) and several minutes after the group filming had apparently damaged city property (“It’s against the law to pry those up — you’re not a city worker”) and ticked off folks enough to call the police.

I love skateboarding and it’s a real shame it’s now apparently criminal in San Francisco (a classic collection of skate spots), but I understand why cops and property owners support these bans. It’s hard to vilify officers who’re asked to bust up active skate spots. The business owner that allows her property to become a regular spot is just waiting for damage, graffiti, reduced foot traffic from weary pedestrians, and potential litigation from parents/bystanders.

MTV star Rob Dyrdek has worked quite a bit to design and promote public skate parks, which are great for the vast majority of respectful skaters, but previews of his upcoming movie Street Dreams look like it will try to convince the public that skaters who insult business owners to their faces, make trouble in motels, and sand skate stoppers off school handrails are unfairly oppressed and just need their own parks. It will only “tell the story” of a minority of skaters and it won’t do the rest any favors.

They tampered with the most important element of the game: the controls. The Flick It moves of Skate 1 all work identically, but the feel is definitely different. I spent countless hours perfecting a realistic style in S1, and even after 3 hours or so of S2 I still feel like I’m starting over.

The replay editor seems tremendously more complex and requires more buttons to get anything done. When you’re trying to film a line in S1 it’s nice to be able to jump in and review different angles immediately; the S2 editor requires you to enter a clip editor and go through another menu to select, adjust, and confirm every angle. Getting back to skating requires at least one or two more button presses than in S1.

The new default camera angle blocks your view less, but looks jerky and much less handheld. And why the “extreme” visual and sound effects whenever you make a big drop, get a ton of speed, or fall? This all makes the game look more cartoonish like the later THPS games, and gets tiring quick when you’re trying a line over and over.

This is a minor gripe, but the movable objects are squeeky clean and almost glowing, ruining an otherwise beautifully grimy environment. I don’t know why they have to stand out because there seems to be only a half-dozen different objects. Having to guess what isn’t bolted down would be a lot more fun.

The Good

It may be just the novelty, but new San Van seems enormous and like a real city that grew over many decades without city planning. Knowing the city in S1 pretty well, skating around is almost an eerie experience, like 50 years have passed and entire city blocks have been replaced. Sometimes you can see the seams where new and old coexist. Major streets dead end in new buildings, other areas have been left in blight with graffiti and handrails bent from skating. The sound of the city is nearly inescapable. If new San Van were the only new thing in S2 it would be worth it.

Returning to a session marker is usually instantaneous, and when there is a wait it’s never as long as in S1. Quick access to the trick guide is handy, as is being able to walk up steps (even if it is pretty glitchy). The graphics seem a little more detailed, but I’m playing on a 10″ SD set; I don’t really care. I like the songs so far.

Verdict @ 3 Hours

As I suspected, I should’ve waited for the price drop. S1 is so good that I’m still not anywhere close to tired of it, and its more minimal replay editor lets me quickly stockpile footage on the PC with minimal tinkering. I feared even a slight tampering of the controls would ruin S2 for me, and it kinda did, but I have a feeling the new replay editor will be even more of a drag over time.

While they’ve obviously done something right, THPS has never been about realism and I think there are plenty of players (probably mostly skaters) who’re looking for a more challenging simulation-like experience. The Project 8 trailer gave me some hope (tricks are done at more realistic heights, with more accurate board motion and foot placements), but the interviews seem to confirm that gameplay isn’t going to change much.

It didn’t, nor did THPG.

Grinds/slides should slow you down depending on the materials in contact; board slides on handrails should be quickening, grinds on an unwaxed concrete planter should slow you down quite a bit but still give a satisfying growl.

Landing tough tricks should be harder and depend more on your speed, energy, timing and the environment; rough, uneven, slick or wet surfaces should require more precise moves, and deep sidewalk cracks, metal gratings, handrail kinks should add a little risk of random board-stopping. You should get a real sense of accomplishment even landing a short run.

A spot shouldn’t be a collection of grinds/slides linked one after another for miles. You might have to maneuver around some tight corners while setting up for a handrail. Spots should be laid out naturally, but inspire creative lines instead of spelling them out. School 2 (THPS2) still stands out as a great level in this respect.

EA skate really pulled most of this off. It feels like real skateboarding (enough to give me that fix when you finally land a line after trying for hours) and has spots that look natural environments. After experiencing skate, THPG looks like a cartoon world where every surface was a quarter pipe. As for skate 2, the trailers still look like real skating and it seems they’ve only extended (not screwed with) the gameplay, but the city’s starting to look a little cartoonish.

A great feature is that you can recreate a scene in 3D using a 2D image, but the problem is that your error goes up quickly as you try to guess angles and distances outside of the origin axis lines. You end up with a model that looks OK at the angle of the photo, but is more noticeably messed up when you shift the view. Most photos of the Hubba ledge aren’t at good angles to accurately map the perspective in SketchUp, so I had to tediously piece together the geometry based on several photos and a some guesswork.

So, when can I skate this?

“Sick Boyz” must’ve had some great distribution because our little skate shop in Huntington, WV had it, yes, on Beta. I put good mileage on my tethered remote control and watched slow-mo shots of Natas Kaupas and Julien Stranger doing probably the first ollie boardslides on handrails in Santa Monica, CA.

And this is amazing. Designed by skater Rob Dyrdek, his hometown in Ohio built a skate “plaza”, a more natural concrete/nature park with reproductions of various world famous skate spots. It’s basically a real version of a THPS level with benches, handrails, gaps, planters…