All the back on day 7 I took a look at Skate It on the Wii; a spin-off from the main PS3/360 series that was pared back and reworked to fit the Wii and it’s motion control system.
.Straight away the limitations of the hardware are made worryingly clear. Before you can start the career mode you have to create your character and, as usual with avatar modeling, one aspect of this is choosing the face shape. On the DS, however, this boils down to which horrifyingly disfigured potato you want to sit on top of your low-polygon scarecrow.
I thought it worked pretty well despite some idiosyncrasies to navigate, and in the end it was a fun game with a unique control scheme that was interesting and reasonably responsive to use.
Launched simultaneously, the Nintendo DS version arrived with the same ethos. It was pared back even further, and this time the controls were re-developed for the DS touch screen and stylus.
That either sounds like an intriguing idea or a horrifying one depending on your outlook.
I try to keep an open and neutral mind but I admit to being excited to try this one when Selectron™ chose it for me.
.Straight away the limitations of the hardware are made worryingly clear. Before you can start the career mode you have to create your character and, as usual with avatar modeling, one aspect of this is choosing the face shape. On the DS, however, this boils down to which horrifyingly disfigured potato you want to sit on top of your low-polygon scarecrow.
Far better is the logo and deck design for which the stylus obviously comes into its own. The paintbox and tools you’re given is surprisingly well kitted out, it’s not Photoshop or anything, but it was more than adequate for me to be able to draw a recognisable skateboarding chicken. Result.
You’re then immediately taken to that bane of a gamer’s existence: The tutorial. These have become a bit of a meme in the medium, but the step-by-step walkthrough provided when you start a career in Skate It is invaluable, as this is a game that controls like no other.
A deck is depicted on the bottom screen and various swipes and flicks are used to manipulate the board. Direction is handled with the d-pad or face buttons and grabs are initiated with the left or right bumper. This is a nice touch that means the game can be played straight away by right handed or wrong left handed people.
The flicks for tricks system is kept pretty simple. Start a swipe from the back for ollie and front for nollie, with the direction from that point used to indicate which trick you’re trying to perform. Draw a diagonal and you’ll perform a kick or heel flip, a quarter circle and you’ll do a shove it, and so on.
It works exceptionally well, and my initial concerns that I’d be looking more at the control screen than the action one soon relieved by this intuitive system.
The big league Skate series are obviously open world and while the Wii version did it’s best to bring some of that to it’s version of Skate It, the developers for the DS version made the wise decision to forego that element completely.
This game deposits you in a skate park and has you navigate via a menu to other areas. I actually ended up playing the Wii version in this way and found it satisfactory - but by embracing the limitations of the DS and making this the de facto way to play it actually helps avoid the disappointment of what would have doubtless been an appalling bleak attempt at an open world environment.
The skate parks themselves are pretty great, they have all the bowls, tacos, rails, and ramps you could ever want. Everything is a little bit murky in the usual DS fashion but you really can’t knock the environments for fulfilling their primary purpose of being fun to skate in - and that’s genuinely the most important aspect of any skating game.
On the negative side, the general presentation is a bit bare bones. The ‘plot’ of having a mate following you everywhere capturing footage or photo’s as you rise from obscurity to superstardom is devoid of any impact. Even on the Wii this was an entertaining framing method but without voice acting to add personality it falls a bit flat on the DS.
Despite this, the game has thankfully managed to keep the feature whereby you can instantly watch a replay of your last trick line, a key aspect of the series popularity - even if the DS’s graphics mean this is somewhat less spectacular than in other versions.
The joy of the Skate series lies in how easy it is to pick out lines and hit combos while skating them. The DS version recreates this perfectly; the movement is smooth and accurate, and after only a little practice the controls become second nature.I had as much fun as ever skating around parks, beating challenges and owning spots to the well curated music (any game features The Specials and Fujiya Miyagi on the soundtrack is alright in my book) although it has to be said that the small playlist ensures plenty of repeats.
Skate It on DS is a very nicely rounded skateboarding package, I was expecting a decent effort but it’s actually a really very good game that shows the benefit of the ground-up rework rather than a half-arsed port.
The bespoke controls are a complete success with only the graphical limitations offering any real disappointment. They do mean that the game offers the most hilarious (lack of) rag-doll effect, with your boarder falling heavily to the ground as if shot whenever things don’t go quite to plan.
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