I’ve only just recently had an opportunity to play EA’s “skate”, a skateboarding game released in 2007, and man is it great. Why do I think its “next-gen”? Let me count the ways…
- The skating engine – collision, animation, and controls – is incredible. It feels incredibly fluid and creates an excellent illusion of belief. If you ollie your skateboard at the correct time, with the wheels lined up to an edge, you will grind very convincingly. Similarly if you are just skating around and the right part of the board happens to touch an edge in the right way then you will start to grind. The controls and collision feel incredibly tight.
- Great ragdoll and animation physics. Not just when you bail but also the player’s arms and legs when riding normally. There is some nice IK.
- The sound of the skateboard is extremely convincing. I’ve worked a bit on sound related software recently so it’s fresh in my mind and I have yet to notice anything that seemed out of place sound wise. I am constantly surprised at how accurate the sound of the skateboard touching various surfaces in varying situations appears to be.
- The ability to replay the last 30 seconds or so of gameplay at any time, edit it into a movie with effects, camera cuts, etc., and then upload it for anyone to watch. Some of the videos online showcase incredible gameplay skills while others are short comedy skits. Unfortunately you need the skate software to watch these videos. I feel like EA missed an opportunity here to let you upload them to YouTube directly (like PixelJunk Eden does). It would have been good for PR in my opinion. Still a great feature that builds community and competition.
Congratulations to the programmers, artists, designers, and testers who clearly worked well together and made a great game. It must have sold well enough to warrant a sequel as both a Wii version and sequel to the Xbox 360 / PS3 game are on the way.
As a postscript one of the most popular user created videos is a bizarre ragdoll sexual assault scene. Yeah. The “film” is in black and white, a woman is running away from a man on, guess what, a skateboard. He eventually chases her down in a subway station and then crashes on top of her in a heap. Some interpenetration of the skateboarding character’s mesh causes some convincing pelvic thrusting as the physics system tries to stabilize itself. I have to wonder if this was a happy accident that was after the fact edited into a joke movie or if someone spent hours trying to get this just right… it’s a little bit scary. Even though I had to laugh at the creativity and use of minor physics issues. Thank you JimboJones8. You are an auteur.
Thanks to my friends at EA for sending me a copy. This is the best game I’ve played in a while.