Shred Central

A while ago EA games created the Skate franchise and it has easily been my favorite, and the favorite of everyone who enjoys skateboard games. Everyone has heard of the Tony Hawk games but those are button-mashing boring and very tired. The new one tries to keep up with EA’s Skate but even with an expensive $120 peripheral, it falls short of its competition.  The controls are probably where the game loses the biggest interest. On easy the game plays itself, and on hard, the peripheral is not accurate enough to provide control to the player.  Quite frankly, this is no surprise. Tony Hawk has not been a great series in the past but it has generated a ton of money to allow us to play the next addition in this terrible franchise, this is due to the fact we have had no other options, but now we have Skate.

When the first Skate came out I was amazed at the graphics, physics and especially the controls. The graphics are great, even by our standards today. The physics are realistic and you don’t find yourself jumping 100 feet in the air off a simple Ollie. The controls are where the skate series stands out. Instead of pressing buttons for tricks, you control your board with the right analog stick and grabs are with the triggers. This has a learning curve, but it is not so bad that you give up. Once you get it down, you can pull any trick you want with accuracy and it works very smoothly.

In Skate 2 the graphics were improved yet again and we were able to get off our boards! I know, doesn’t seem like a very new important update but it means we can now set up lines the way we wanted them by moving around objects. This is an amazing game with tons of replay ability that has kept me playing it even now.

Coming in March is Skate 3. This game boasts about community and they are starting to create skate crews. This is  basically a group of people who skate together. This looks like it will add a lot to the franchise and it has easily become one of my most anticipated games of 2010.

trailer: