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Skate 3

Skate 3

Black Box and EA are back to once again take up the fight for the throne of the skating genre. We dug up grandfather Petter to take his board out for a spin. Just like in the good old days!

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Eye-hand coordination is key. Didn't I have this conversation with myself last time I played a Skate-game? Why can't I shake this bad feeling that I'm growing old, the same feeling I got when I tried to stand on an actual skateboard a few years ago? I had problems going in a straight line, while the 12-year old kids were doing ollies like they were born with their boards glued to their feet.

So yeah, my eyes and my hands don't really want to play nice together. I've been brainwashed by Tony Hawk, I keep expecting to do a Force Grab or an insane stunt with the press of a few buttons. It takes a while before the panic that keeps setting in as soon as I get near a ledge or jump dissipates and I start to relax. With the relaxation comes the feeling of cruising around, and then Skate 3 really starts to shine. It's not about speed, it's not about playing as Darth Maul. It's about taking your time, approaching every obstacle with a clear mind. It's about improvisation on the fly, while still maintaining your calm.

There's a story here, luckily not as intruding or worthless as in certain other games in the genre. Me and a friend have started up a new skateboarding brand, and we want to sell boards. The more challenges I finish, the more boards we sell. The more boards we sell, the more challenges open up and new members are added to my team. The story is there, but it's not in the way. It does not annoy me or steal the show. The main thing is skateboarding, meeting pros that have signed up to have their likeness and voices included in the game. That's good enough for me, just the way I like it.

To be honest, I have a certain problem with how the skateboarding scene changed when Jackass came along. It became obnoxious. While the first brilliant Tony Hawk-games were wonderful, the attitude of the later titles bugged the crap out of me to the point that I gave up on them. I loathe shows like Jackass or Viva la Bam, the institutionalized stupidity gives me a headache. I want to skate when I fire up one of these games, not feel like I'm a part of the late-night MTV madness. With Skate 3, the good old days are back. For me, that's wonderful news (and I can even enjoy the challenges where I have to break as many bones as possible in my body - at least no one jumps into the frame, waves some devil signs with his hand, burps in my face and fries vomit for dinner).

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It's also easier this time around. You got three difficulty level, ranging from easy to pro. Despite the fact that I jumped straight for the easy-option, the game hardly lacks feeling because of it. I still bail. I bail often. The veterans might scoff at me, but the game hardly loses out because of its inclusion - in fact, it has tons to gain instead. It's more accessible, which for me is key when it comes to a game that at the end of the day is a sport-game. If you're more hardcore and have spent hours together with the previous titles in the series, you'll probably crank up the difficulty.

The music is also quite good for a skating game. I've had it with Blink 182 and their ilk, and it's hard for me not to sense a wonderful nostalgia wash over me as Joy Division's Disorder starts to play as I approach a particular jump. This is the life. Me, my skateboard, my hip clothes that I've unlocked by selling boards, and some great music. It's getting faster, moving faster now, it's getting out of hand and I bail again. But hey, I got a big grin on my face.

There's an online mode weaved into the game, where certain challenges can be played with or against friends. Your also able to call up your friends' skaters if you don't feel like skating alone. Sadly, since the game hasn't been released yet, this part of the game is still a pretty big mystery for me. The photos and movies you've taken can all be uploaded to a central server and shared with the world which is great - in general, the whole photo-taking and filming part of the game is a lot of fun to play around with and as you play your face (and those of your team members) start to turn up on billboards all around town. According to a tip on one of the loading screens, your friends' skaters will automatically start to show up in your city as well. Again, nothing I've seen so far.

The only good thing about the current lack of players is that I'm really high up on the leaderboards. That will probably last for five minutes or so when Skate 3 hits the shops. Ah, well. It was fun while it lasted.

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Skate 3 is a really sweet skating game. And with Tony Hawk's games only getting worse and worse as time goes by, the Skate-games are cementing their place on the top of the genre. The controls might still be a bit odd for a lot of gamers, but once you start to get a hang of them they deliver an unbeatable feeling. In this day and age, when people talk so much about motion controllers and how much immersion they are supposed to create, games like Skate 3 stand as proof that the good old controllers are still awesome and hard to beat.

With the online component, tons of challenges and unlocks, Skate 3 will last for a long, long time. While it has some problems, including certain issues with the camera (which can get really annoying, considering how easy it is to fall off your board or crash into obstacles), it's a great game. Even for old people that have started to lose their eye-hand coordination.

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Skate 3Skate 3Skate 3Skate 3
08 Gamereactor UK
8 / 10
+
Great controls, welcome difficulty settings, focus on the skating, tons of content
-
Certain issues with the camera
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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Skate 3

REVIEW. Written by Petter Mårtensson

Black Box and EA are back to once again take up the fight for the throne of the skating genre. We dug up grandfather Petter to take his board out for a spin. Just like in the good old days!



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