The improvement of EA's most realistic skateboard: Skate 2
With the recent acceptance of Skate as an Olympic sport in Tokyo 2020 I could not help but bring out of the dust one of my favorite games of my teenage years, I still remember how by those years no one played another Skate title in which Tony Hawk or Activision was not behind and the stir that made the second installment of the Skate saga had a resounding success putting itself as a benchmark of this street sport. Skate 2 was a whole new way to interact with our skateboard, much more physical and more realistic than in titles of yesteryear, it was not particularly wrapped in content but what was there was enough to last an eternity, the tricks were complex and took much longer to complete and master them, and it was a very personal game that before getting on the wheels accompanied us to customize our character and skateboard with a fairly large section of clothing and accessories.
The goal of Skate 2 is clear, to improve what its predecessor did that already since its launch was one of the key titles of Skate, offering realism and mixing it with accessibility and also fun seemed a complicated task for the Black Box division of EA but after a rocky development in a difficult post-crisis environment of 2008, you can see that they have improved a lot since the last installment giving absolute freedom just after the tutorial and giving a new feeling on the skateboard separating the controls and letting us mix them to do the stunts we want.
The first thing we will receive from Skate 2 after the introduction menu and the creation of our character is a small tutorial on the streets of how to ride the skateboard, the controls although they are quite complete and simple in the first steps I had not been able to perceive how much the difficulty increases once we advance and overcome tests, it is a game where you have to understand very well the controls and physics that dominate the game to be able to even do one of the first tricks, Although the guys at EA also implement a fairly complete tutorial and at the same time short for us to understand what each movement we do, it is also at this time where the game opens its open world, we have several objectives or missions that we can do but always have this element of freedom present as most will be to do some trick we want while we promote a brand or while we take a photo shoot for a new event, we can do the tricks we want as long as we collect enough points before time runs out.
The right stick is perhaps the most risky bet of EA with this game, because it controls the entirety of our skateboard and with it we can perform all the stunts, and I can say that it felt great and very intuitive to learn because there are no too extravagant combinations so we will not have to memorize too many combinations but we will only have to know how to move with the stick, the impulse both on foot and with the skateboard is left to the upper buttons of the controllers (as if we were playing a racing title), the left pad is usually to give direction to the skateboard and there are some extra controls to rescue the skateboard in case we lose it or to orient the camera to put us more at ease when doing some acrobatics.
We will have a huge park with various objects and rails to perform the tricks we want in free mode and whenever we want we can perform the missions to unlock other areas of the park or other missions, although at first it does not pose a challenge too powerful as we progress through the tests are incorporated other elements such as puzzles that make the gameplay a little more varied but certainly the best is the feeling of gameplay that is given to us from start to finish where we have full control of the skateboard and the wide possibility of what we want in this space. We will also have a story mode that although it does not have much weight if it serves to introduce us to other imminent figures of skateboarding and test us with them, the game mode of competitions stands out for being an event similar to the X-games where we have to chain the most tricks in a given time, something that will surely take us several hours to overcome because if we add all the tricks that we must know to have a decent score there are also other skaters who will not make it easy to win.
There are other game modes away from the traditional skateboarding as one where we must do as much damage as possible by falling off our skateboard to earn points, it is similar to other modes that I tried for example in Saint Row but here it works great to complement the game, plus we can also earn some money in the process. The multiplayer is another of the additions in this game that although I didn't try it at the time, it does offer several players to measure themselves in competitions to see who generates more points with the skateboard.
I think Skate 2 is a more than worthy successor to the entire line of Tony Hawk games, it offers a realistic and at the same time accessible vision of this sport while adding other complementary game modes to the game that make it stand out. EA has done an amazing job with the current installments but this second installment laid the foundations very well more than a decade ago to dominate the skateboard in the video game. Recommended.