Skate 2 is a wonderful example of a videogame doing justice to an alternative culture, in this case, the underground-gone-mainstream world of skating – you know you’re in for a cultural treat when the introduction and ensuing gameplay features a veritable who’s who of pro skating legends, both in live action and digital 3D form.

As an experience, Skate 2 definitely talks the talk, effortlessly inviting you into the skating culture that has been built primarily on showmanship and self-expression, both of which are fully present. As a game, Skate 2 also walks the walk, providing you with the means to pull off a multitude of real-life skating tricks and feats, while simultaneously giving you the tools to experiment and make the world your playground.

Skate 2 could best be described as a skating simulation, allowing players to perform tricks with realism that is as close as you can get with a controller in your hand. Movement (direction and player momentum) is handled with the left stick, while the right stick allows you to pull off tricks with a few pre-ordained directional movements and flicks (try saying that five times fast), while face and shoulder buttons act as modifiers for those tricks, as your skating move repertoire expands and your confidence grows.

New to the Skate series is the ability to jump off of your board and explore the city of New San Vanelona on foot. Not only does this open up the option of walking up stairs and steep slopes, instead of finding a way around on your board, it also allows players to interact with objects in the world to better set you up for a series of skating manoeuvres, so, for example, you can drag any object that isn’t nailed down into the perfect position to allow you to jump off of (or land on top of) a well placed park bench to grind, or a ramp to give you enough lift to pull off airborne manoeuvres.

The world of San Vanelona, however, has more than enough opportunities, environments and objects to throw yourself off of at high speed, so the ability to drag other objects around is only really required to pull off specific progress-based moves, but is definitely a welcome addition to the game as it lends the overall experience a great sandbox feeling, enabling you to experiment anywhere you happen to find yourself.

Finding yourself is made easier with the city map and the opportunity to warp to any destination you can find, while the ability to place Session Markers allows you to instantly teleport back to your chosen spot, so you can try the same series of tricks over and over again without having to physically move yourself there, set yourself up again, and then go on your next run - just reset yourself to your Session Marker and try again.

Skate 2 is very content rich in terms of the amount of objectives and activities you’re given to complete in order to further the singleplayer experience (including competitions, races, two career paths, special Pro Challenges and bonus missions), with a free skate mode, an online multiplayer mode (competitive and cooperative) and offline turn-based multiplayer (pass the controller style) to keep you busy.

The main hurdle of the game is the unbalanced difficulty ramp that players new to the franchise (and new to skating games in general) will experience after a half an hour with the game. In the beginning, you’re carefully introduced to the mechanics of Skate 2, learning the basics of the stick-based trick system, but then once you’re given more free reign, it becomes increasingly difficult to complete certain objectives to the exacting standards that the game requires of you, at times seeming impossible to pull off the required series of moves in a sequence.

This problem is alleviated (somewhat) with the option to simply skate around on your own, getting comfortable with the controls and mechanics on your own time, rather than force yourself to learn a specific sequence of tricks to perform and progress in the singleplayer mode. Thankfully, Skate 2 is laid-back enough to allow for this kind of free play, so that by the time you come back to an objective that had you stumped, you’re at least able to attempt it with some confidence, and when you (finally) get it right, you feel as though you’ve actually achieved something – a rarity in games these days.

An element that enforces this feeling of achievement in Skate 2 is the game’s excellent gameplay feedback, mostly relayed through the great selection of sound effects as your board hits different surfaces, resulting in that satisfying ‘click-clack’ sound that tells you that you’ve successfully pulled off a trick just right. Skating animations, too, are very well implemented and realistic as your skater sways and contorts in harmony with the board beneath their feet.

Skate 2, as it stands, is the most complete and realistic skating game (and/or simulation) currently available. From the way tricks are intuitively performed with the stick, your movements are tied directly to how you take advantage of the buttons and modifiers in a natural way, and the convincing presentation of feedback while skating (and crashing out) all adds up to a wonderful gaming experience which successfully represents skating culture, resulting in a feeling of enhanced authenticity that definitely adds to that experience. For extreme sports fans, and especially skating enthusiasts, Skate 2 comes highly recommended.

Pros: Wonderful representation of skating culture; great feedback; content rich; intuitive controls

Cons: Create a skater feature is a little limited; sharp difficulty curve; cars, security guards and city folk can get in the way while skating

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