Should you Skate with this Wii version or stick with the traditional style?
Skate It unleashes the Flickit revolution on the Nintendo Wii. Use the Wii Remote to string together your sickest tricks for the ultimate line. Deepen the gameplay experience by planting your feet on the Wii Balance Board. Ride with the pros, own the best spots in San Vanelona, and rake in sponsorships on your path to becoming Thrasher Magazine’s Skater of the Year. Come up on the streets of San Van, and then venture out to shred some of the world’s best skate cities. You can even rework the environments to create the ultimate skate spot. Loaded with all-new gameplay features and a unique set of controls designed specifically for the Nintendo Wii, skate it taps into the soul and grit of being on a board to deliver a fresh gaming experience.
A New Way To Skate: Pick a board and shred – the Wii Remote and the Wii Balance Board both act as skateboards, intuitively reacting to gestures that mirror real-world skate manoeuvres.
Create The Ultimate Skate Space With My Spot: Gamers can make spots truly their own by moving objects like ramps, rails, and benches to fit their skating style. Unlock new skateable objects by winning challenges and then create a fantasy dream park.
Real-World Skate Spots: Conquer the best San Vanelona spots and get sponsored by real skate companies. Then travel the world to skate, own, and customise iconic real-world locales.
Live To Skate, Skate To Live: Skate with the world’s top pros in your quest to become Thrasher Magazine’s Skater of the Year.
Skate was a mixed bag. It had a different control scheme from Tony Hawk and looked great, but the amount you could do was limited and tricks were very difficult to pull off. Skate It brings that same experience over to the Wii with its own unique controls, even using the balance board if you wish to do so. Sadly I was unable to test out that feature because I have yet to actually pick one up, so we’ll leave that out for now.
The new control scheme works quite well, although the tutorial trying to explain it is useless. It shows a small diagram in the top right hand corner, but sometimes it’s hard to tell what the hell its showing. At one point it just showed the very bottom part of the Wii Remote move around but it was hard to tell what it was for a while. Tricks are still difficult to pull off, yet feel more satisfying because of the motion controls.
One feature that the game is missing is online, there’s really little excuse now for a game not to have online support. It could have opened the game up a bit more and give it some extra replay value, but alas once again it’s MIA. It’s a shame really and a missed opportunity for the game to shine. Underneath it all, Skate It isn’t that bad…it just lacks that enjoyment factor that Skate or Tony Hawk games have.
I must confess that I don’t particularly like skating games that much. In fact, I pretty much despise them…yet I can see how people might enjoy them. Pulling off tricks and the like can be satisfying for a while, I just wonder for how long? The game has a good length career mode and a standard play it now feature; it also has 4 player multiplayer in which you compete for points by doing tricks. It does feel like they’ve played it a little safe, there’s nothing exciting or innovative here.
Visually, the game is also quite bland. Yet, character models are well detailed and performance is smooth. For a Wii game, its good enough but you know it could probably do a bit more…The soundtrack isn’t to my tastes but I’m sure there will be some of you who will enjoy it. Sound quality is fairly high and seem authentic enough for the effects they tried to capture.
The Verdict
Skate It seems a bit disappointing, yet it does have its moments. The control scheme is great once you get used to it, but the game itself lacks anything unique and the lack of online hurts it overall. Skating fans will go nuts for it, just not as much as the first game or its rival.
