EA Made My Dream Skate Game, But You Will Probably Hate It

 

I’m rolling down the streets of San Vansterdam doing pop-shuvits and nosegrinding benches when I stumble across one of the larger skate parks in the area. It has numerous ramps, rails and even a loop-de-loo, the top of which is missing. However, what catches my eye isn’t any of that. It is a group of about 6 to 7 other players leaping off a nearby building rooftop and cavemaning into a ramp, rocketing themselves into the sky going off a nearby quarter pipe. When in Rome, right? I join them as more players gather, but a few minutes later, one of the players spawns a rail right next to the ramp everyone is cavemaning onto. Then, they spawn another and another until they have made this ludicrously long rail, probably 100 metres long. So now the unwritten challenge has changed to ‘how far can you grind this rail going 1000 kilometres an hour?’ Skater after skater tries, but it’s more difficult than it sounds because rails aren’t connected, so you gotta do little ollies between the rails, otherwise you’re eating concrete. But we keep at it, and eventually, one person clears it, and then another, and another. Someone spawns a couch at some point, and now players are sitting on said couch, clapping and encouraging other players. After everyone has cleared the long rail, someone has placed a row of 10 more couches and a kicker at the front.

It's better flinging yourself off rooftops with others

 

This is one of many similar experiences I had over the last few months playing the closed alpha test of Electronic Arts' newest entry in the Skate franchise, simply called Skate. (Yes, that dot is part of the name.) But despite having many enjoyable experiences, the franchise fans who love Skate 1, 2, and 3 will hate this game simply because it is not Skate 4. They made changes not to the gameplay fundamentals or the pitch-perfect controls, but to the structure itself. They dared to try something new and different.

The naturally occuring community is the best part of Skate

As I alluded to in the introduction, the most significant fundamental change is the massively multiplayer functionality. When you boot into Skate, you are joined by dozens of other skaters roaming around the map doing sick kickflips and getting hit by buses. Outside of dedicated challenges, this is always on. It even occurs in the sectioned-off tutorial when you first start the game. However, unlike something like ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5’, which just has ghosts running around you that you can’t interact with, Skate uses this to its advantage by allowing players to create and collaborate together naturally. There are no physical collision systems, so no one can troll you by smashing into you during a line, but every player can interact with every placed object. So if you, for example, spawn a kicker at the bottom of the parking lot ramp so you can fling yourself into the open windows of the church, other players in your lobby can use that same kicker or spawn one themselves. It is my favourite thing about this new Skate game: you can just join players doing stuff, whether it’s checking on the daily spawning custom skateparks or seeing who can grind around a statue. Want something more structured? You can drop a spontaneous challenge anywhere on the map and bring up to three friends for any of the regular challenges. But if you don’t like other players and want to stick to yourself, you can just ignore them. All challenges despawn other players, and since collisions are disabled, no one can troll you either.

They nailed the core fundementals

People will be most upset about the other significant change: switching to a free-to-play model. All other Skate games were one-time purchases with additional DLC to support them, but this Skate game is free-to-play with all the typical pros and cons. Yes, you can just download and skate around without spending a cent. Nothing fundamental is locked out. All tricks are available to all players, and the entire map is accessible from the start. The monetisation strategy EA is employing is entirely cosmetic. While playing, you can unlock a white shirt and a purple skateboard deck, but you will have to pay if you want the VANS apparel or dress up like a beef steak. Other than that and a battle pass they have yet to reveal, that is everything that requires real money. The rest is unlocked by levelling up your character by completing challenges or using currency you acquire to buy lootboxes. You probably thought, “You didn’t mention anything about lootboxes!” You’re right. I call these “lootboxes”, but they are the mildest lootboxes I’ve ever seen. First, there is no way to spend real money on them; each box only has 11 unlockable items and every time you get an item, it is removed from the pool. So if you open the ‘Coolest’ box 11 times, you get all 11 items. I personally would have preferred a traditional store, but for what it is, it is totally serviceable.

Collaborate with strangers to do something dangerous

 

The last significant change I want to mention is the progression system. Other skateboarding games just had challenges you completed that unlocked other challenges. Simple enough. However, this Skate game is slightly different. Each challenge, whether it's an Own the Spot, Hall of Meat or a Line challenge, has 3 to 5 objectives within these challenges. These can range from getting a specific score to performing several flip tricks to doing a particular grind on this rail. Every time you complete one of these objectives, you get a medal, and those medals are what you need to unlock more content. If you want to start the next step in the tour (the Skate equivalent of questlines), you’ll need a certain number of medals. Medals are only obtainable through the challenges spread across the map, which reset every day, so if you’re exhausted from all the challenges you can do, come back tomorrow for a set of new challenges. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock cosmetics for your skater, skateboard, objects you place to create your own spots and unlock more activities across the map. While you can physically go anywhere on the map, challenges and fast travel points are locked behind the progression, so keep that in mind. 

You can still do physics-defying silliness if that is your thing

 

That is what makes Skate different from the other games in the series. How about what is the same? The controls are absolutely pitch-perfect. The team over at Full Circle completely nailed the controls. I’m using the standard controls, but there is a streamlined version I have yet to try. But honestly, if you have played any of the other Skate games, you will feel right at home with the new game. The flip tricks feel exactly how they felt in Skate 3, and the weight and movement of the skater are in line with what you would expect. When this was announced 70 years ago, this was my primary concern. They could have made the biggest map and the most content using the prettiest graphics; if they had flunked out on the controls, it would have ruined the game, but I am glad to say they 100% got it down. The only thing missing from the prior game's repertoire is darkside grinds, but I can live with that.

Don't expect to get that GIRL deck without a credit card

I’ve been mostly positive about this game, but there is one thing that I’m a little negative on, which is the presentation. Now the graphics themselves, I think, are excellent. The skaters have a slightly cartoony look and colour palette similar to the modern Sims titles, and the environments are bright and clear. I love some of the graffiti on the walls. However, the main issue is sound, mainly the voice acting. I don’t want to say the voice acting is bad, but all the speaking characters have this dull, bored tone that makes it seem like they are phoning it in. Vee, your floating camera, has this dry robot voice, which makes sense thematically, but the problem is that it also applies to the human characters. They all sound like autonomous robots. I know they are trying to go for that laid-back, chilled-out skater vibes to the characters, but they turned that knob way too far and make it seem like both the characters and the voice actors playing them do not want to be there.

You know, skateboarding music!

I also wanted to give a special shout-out to the soundtrack, which might be the weirdest soundtrack to a game I have ever heard. When you think of skateboarding video game soundtrack, you’re probably thinking of punk rock and hip hop. Yes, those genres are represented well, but you also have a lot of indie pop, experimental rap, and jazz here. For fuck sake, ‘Earth, Wind and Fire’ has a song in this game. They put numerous disco songs in a skateboarding game. It somehow works, but it shocks your system a bit when you listen to MF DOOM one minute and funky disco the next.

Despite everything, it's still Skate

Now, what do I think of it as a whole? I really like Skate, a lot. Skate to me has always been my perfect chillout game, where I pick a spot and skate for 45 minutes, and that is what this game is trying to be: a chillout social skating game. But most people don’t want that. They want the objectives and the progression, as well as competitive multiplayer. This is not that game, and I doubt EA will make the changes to turn it into that. People will see the free-to-play monetisation, the always online multiplayer, the weird dialogue and the fact that it allows you to have male body types wear skirts and dismiss it outright, which is too bad for those people because they are going to miss out on something unique and fun. If you want that structure, hardcore technicality and dry skating culture, I would suggest Session: Skate Sim and Skater XL. But for me, this is the game I will stick with because it focuses on what I believe to be the most essential part of any skateboarding video game: just letting me go out and skate.