EA's Skate gives Activision's Tony franchise run for money

[jdozs]

I downloaded the Demo the other day for this game and all I can say is WOW!!! After last years installment of Tony Hawk and the new "nail the trick" mode I was amazed at where these games are heading. When I heard of the new analoge stick control layout for Skate I couldn't help but anticipate how good this game is going to be. Let's face it, over the years many companies have tried to get in the ring against Activision and they have all failed to take down the monster franchise. This year however EA has managed to make a game feel more realistic and rewarding than any of the Tony Hawk games as of yet. Granted Activision is giving it's own take this year with the inclusion of Nail the grab, nail the rail, and I believe nail the manual. Only time will tell if EA has accomplished what no other company could but from what I seen with the Demo, it surely has a fighting chance.
With all that said I was a little dissapointed that some things are just not possible in Skate.. (impossible, back foot flips, darkslides, etc) but this is the rookie year for this game so in the future I believe EA will deliver much like it has with Madden, Tiger, NHL, Burnout, Medal of Honor, the list goes on.......

[darkpilgrim]

man i totally agree. Being a former skater, I was so disguraged at the last 5 or 6 T Hawks. They were just too unrealistic for me. then came this Skate demo. You feel a since of accomplishment just doing small things like 50-50s and nose slides. just like when i used to skate. We never grinded telephone wires and jumped of 30 story buildings. We busted our A's to just hit that 3 step railing. Hopefully some of the moves like dark slides impossibles are in the game we just don't know how to do them. Somehow i did a hardflip once.

[jdozs]

What!!!! You never grinded a telephone wire? That's just absurd. My friends and I often Ollied 30+ feet quad flipped into a feeble on the local telephone lines only to do a christ air into a judo ending in a manual only to do it all over again on the next line....

Even if the moves are not in the game it still makes this genre fun again. I see the comparison like that of Forza to burnout. While both are fun they are two seperate games entirely with an arcade approach from one and the Sim approach from the other. I don't doubt that this game is going to lack in a few areas such as being able to stop your board mid-flip and darkslide or casper and as of yet I see no way of doing any sort of hand flip or fingerflip or a handplant but yet I have had more fun playing this game over the last few days than I have playing just about any other game out there right now.