3/5 ★ – THRILLSON's review of Skate.

It’s probably not fair to review this now, as it is the weakest game in the skate trilogy. But it was the best skateboarding game in 2007. This was the first truly “HD” skateboarding game. THAW and Project 8 were basically just widescreen upreses of PS2 games. skate. revolutionized the control scheme, and brought a lot of lesser known skaters to the mainstream. The intro cinematic is fantastic too. But there are a tonne of issues with this game, and it feels very rushed. It is overly stylized, with vignettes, magazine style cut and paste menus, and diegetic sound so the music plays from boom boxes and outdoor speakers. Even the camera is diegetic. We are viewing the main character through his buddy’s camera lens at all times. He regularly calls out to the player, and breaks the fourth wall at times by reminding the player it is a videogame. But there just isn’t much to do. Apart from a few cleverly placed skate items, you are just dumped in a city, and a lot of it isn’t skateable. And there is barely any story here. The player is tasked with getting famous, which you do by getting pictures in both Skate Magazine and thrasher. The former focusing on technical skating and the later on reckless and aggressive skating. You need to do challenges and film skate videos to earn enough rep to unlock the next photo challenge. Challenges are in a set are with specific criteria to complete, like kickflip into a manual on the hubba. Films are done anywhere the player likes, and are more or less setup for the player to showcase a “line” in the form of a 30 second video clip. The problem is these get near impossible at the end, requiring massive scores and tricks that don’t flow together well, like vert tricks and grinds. The controls aren’t very precise, and it is extremely easy to miss-input, or sometimes nothing happens. You flick the stick but nothing happens, or you stand up without popping. Another odd choice is not allowing the player to get off the board. Because the map is designed like a city first and a skate paradise second, there are many areas you can’t really reach because you can’t walk up stairs. Tony hawk did this 3 years earlier, so why is it so hard? There also seems to be some scaling issues, with rails sometimes being too tall to hit, and I swear the physics break as soon as you start filming. Sessions markers never seem to stay, and you always respawn in the stance you bailed in, so it becomes super annoying restarting in switch when you are trying to complete a challenge. Also as an aside, I swear when the game launched your board would wear slowly with play and you’d have to buy a new one. But nope. Its just always mid level worn. Unfortunately I hit a wall, as the filming challenges got ridiculously difficult and I had enough and moved onto Skate 2. With all that said, this game is such a chill vibe. The soundtrack is on point, the art style is funky and original, and there is a good selection of merch. When the physics work they feel the most realistic; skate 2 and 3 are too fast and focus on big air and massive speed too much, though skate 2007 falls victim to backflip and spin spam too. Almost all of my complaints were addressed in the sequels ,meaning there just isn’t really any reason to play this game, but check out the intro video. It is included in EA play on xbox one/series. I played on a One X, and it seems to be slightly upscaled and plays at a locked 30. It is nowhere near as detailed or smooth as the Skate 3 One X/Series X port, but it plays better than on 360. If it wasn’t this easy to obtain I would steer clear. Important to the Skating game genre, but no longer essential to play.