Day 78 - Skate it (DS)

Will touch controls prove ingenious or maddening in today's randomly selected title from my 556 game backlog. I'm playing one a day while I'm enduring Covid-19 lockdown...

Skate It for the DS
Previous days' entries can be read HERE.

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.

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.

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 5: Skate It (Wii)

The latest in my attack of (at least) one game from my 641 strong backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know:A) What they're all about.B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

It's gonna be a waggly one. Today the randomiser has chosen...

Skate It on the Wii

Lets just right away address something: The Wii was not a shit console.

Yes, Nintendo's under-powered little box had more terrible games than it's possible to count, but that's totally irrelevant; what matters is the good games and there are dozens upon dozens of those on this system. So lets see on which side skate it falls.

The first thing that hits you is how old the game looks. It was released n 2008; the same year as GTA IV, and it's no exaggeration to say it looks at least 5 years older than Rockstar's bowling simulator.

Obviously this is a spin-off from the amazing 'skate' series on 360 and PS3, only as this is the Wii we have to have motion controls and we have to have everything scaled back. Considerably.

In a piece of live action footage read by a guy who is obviously even less of actor than I am, the game sets up a clever conceit: San Vanelona, the series fictional home, has been ravaged by a series of natural disasters and 99% of the population has been evacuated - which basically means the hardware couldn't cope with the living city we'd grown to love from the other games.

While the visuals are more than a little ropey the sound is exactly as you'd expect from a skating game, with old school ska rubbing shoulders with pop-punk and a little electro for good measure. Noteably the voiceover provided by your off-screen cameraman is surprising great and often has genuinely funny 4th wall breaking gags.

The environments are pretty decent in terms of generating fun lines and trick opportunities, but I rarely spent any time exploring them. All the challenges in a given area can be selected from a menu and, with in game indicators only showing up when you're already on top of them, it would take a better human than me to resist just clicking on a list and warping to a location. All this means that the gameplay is far less fluid than in the other series entries and I think a persons enjoyment will depend a lot on how ok with that they are.

Another thing that enjoyment will hinge on is the motion controls. Obviously back in the day the Wii got a lot of hate for adding 'waggle' where it wasn't wanted and I can imagine that 'skate it' was subject to this same criticism. But, honestly, I think they work fine. There's even an option to play using the Wii Fit Balance board - I didn't try that out but I just might. The motion controls are kept simple and after some practice I was pulling off the trick I wanted 95% of the time.

And lets face it anyway, if you tell me you always know exactly what trick is going to pop out on any modern skating game then you're just flat out lying to yourself.

Overall it was just really good fun to be playing a new (to me) skateboarding game again.

skate it - You know what? I just accidentally played this thing for 3 straight hours, so, screw it. Recommended

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC