Skate

Skate (marketed as skate.) is a skateboarding video game developed by EA Black Box for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was released in North America on September 17, 2007 for the Xbox 360 and September 24, 2007 for the PlayStation 3 and in Europe on September 28, 2007 for the Xbox 360 and October 5, 2007 for the PlayStation 3. As of February 1, 2008, Skate has outsold the 2007 skateboarding game Tony Hawk's Proving Ground by a ratio of almost 2 to 1 on seventh generation video game consoles. Two sequels to Skate, Skate 2 and Skate 3 have been released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, as well as Skate It, a spin-off for the Wii, Nintendo DS, and iOS platforms. The latest installment, Skate 3, was released in May 2010. Note: This was copied from Wikipedia!

Gameplay
The player controls a custom-designed skateboarder in the fictional town of San Vanelona. Skating challenges are marked on a mini-map, along with stores and subway stations that allow the player to traverse the city quickly. As the player develops their skills and performs various tasks (such as completing certain tricks while being filmed), sponsorship and notability are acquired, eventually leading to participation in the X Games. "Filming" challenges allow the player to create a line of tricks to meet the filming goals; the player may also place a session marker to return to a spot quickly after finishing a line. Several "own the spot" locations throughout the city allow the player to try to claim that spot by beating a certain score requirement, thus "owning" the spot from other skaters. Additionally, there are jam sessions and "death races" against other AI-controlled characters. Completing challenges will generally unlock new clothing and equipment items, characters, and additional challenges to compete in. Players are able to create and edit short video clips (15 to 30 seconds) at any time, selecting desired camera angles and video effects, and upload them to EA's "Skate Reel" website to share with others.[4]

Dissimilar to the Tony Hawk skateboarding series in which most tricks are initiated by button presses, the player initiates tricks in Skate using the analog sticks, pulling and pushing in various directions and combinations with other parts of the controller to launch ollies, nollies, grabs, manuals and flip tricks. Mid-air spins and other unique stunts are also performed in the same manner. Grinds require the player to land on an appropriate surface, with the landing type determining the type of grind that is performed. A line of tricks is generated by continuing to perform tricks without letting a multiplier meter run out. Player attributes such as balance or trick ability are not based on earned statistics and do not artificially improve as the player progresses. All tricks possible in the game are available to the player from the beginning with one goal, to successfully complete each trick listed in a trick book.

Skate allows players to freestyle or compete against other players online in jam sessions, races, S-K-A-T-E and own the spot challenges, using selected sections of the San Vanelona map.

Mobile Version
The mobile version of Skate features two game modes: Thrasher Mode (the main game mode, in which the player completes goals to make the cover of skateboarding magazine Thrasher) and Free Skate (where the player can play on levels previously unlocked in Thrasher Mode). The player plays as a customized skater, who receives tips from pro skaters Chris Cole and Rob Dyrdek, among others, through twelve missions divided in four goals each. Though the game is still set in San Vanelona, there are only three explorable areas: Plaza, Halfpipe and Downtown, aside from linear levels only playable in Thrasher Mode. The mobile version of Skate later won "Cellular Game of the Year" award at the 2008 Interactive Achievement Awards.

Demo
The demo was scheduled for release on Xbox Live for August 15, 2007[5] but was delayed (as stated by Scott Blackwood on the Skate forum) due to a sudden problem with the demo's Skate Reel (video editing) feature, releasing on August 21, 2007. It was released on PlayStation Network in September 2007. The demo let players skate around the San Vanelona Community Center for thirty minutes and learn how to do various tricks as well as create and edit videos.

Music
The soundtrack of Skate consists of many punk rock and hip hop songs, many of which are by independent artists such as The Falcon. Some songs in the game are exclusive to Skate, such as Tommy Guerrero, XXXChange, and Z-Trip.

Airbourne - Let's Ride

Bad Brains - I Against I

Band Of Horses - The Funeral

Beat Beat Beat - Sinking Slow

Black Flag - Six Pack *

Booker T & The MG's - Green Onions

Challenger - Input The Output

Cheap Trick - Surrender

Children Of Bodom - Hate Crew Deathroll *

David Bowie - Queen Bitch

Dead Prez - Hip Hop *

Devo - Gut Feeling-Slap Your Mammy

Eddie Rap Life - Push Your Wood

Eric B & Rakim - Juice (Know The Ledge) *

Escalera - Go It Alone

Filthy Thieving Bastards - …Lords Of The Avenues *

Gang Starr - Now You're Mine *

H.I.T. - Drama *

Mac Mall - Perfect Poison *

Motorhead - We Are Motorhead *

Nirvana - Lounge Act *

N.W.A. - Express Yourself *

Renee Renee - Stand Up Talk Easy *

Rick James - Give It To Me Baby

Rick Ross - Hustlin' *

River City Tanlines - Black Knight

S.T.R.E.E.T.S. - Georgia St.

Sicker Than Others - Face Away

Sister Nancy - Bam Bam

Slayer - Raining Blood

The Briefs - Poor And Weird

The Coup - Ride The Fence *

The Dwarves - Massacre *

The Exploding Hearts - Your Shadow

The Falcon - Blackout *

The Mag Seven - Dick Cemetery

The Ramones - Psycho Therapy

The Returnables - Teenage Imposter

The Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant

The Stars Misplaced - Prophets And Kings

The White Stripes - Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine

Trouble Andrew - Chase Money *

Valient Thorr - Man Behind The Curtain

ZZ Top - Just Got Paid

Development
The game's "flick it" control system began development long before any graphics had been implemented: the initial prototype simply read analogue stick motions and displayed a basic text message saying what trick had been performed, along with speed and accuracy ratings.[6] The developers found that in order to receive accurate information from the very fast analogue stick motions used when playing the game, input data from each control pad had to be read at a rate of 120Hz.

The game relies extensively on physics to model the skateboarders' movement. Havok, Endorphin and others were considered, but ultimately a RenderWare package called "Drives" was used to model the joints of the human body.

Evidence from different versions of EA's official website for Skate show that the game has been through some major changes in development. For example, one screenshot, dated "04/06/2007", shows that San Vanelona was originally planned to be a coastal city, featuring a football stadium, harbour and cruise liner.

Major changes were also made to the soundtrack. Originally planned to feature "Roadhouse Blues" by The Doors, the soundtrack now focuses more heavily on hip-hop. Some songs appear in both studio and remixed form.

Reception
IGN gave the Xbox 360 version of skate a 9.0,and the PlayStation 3 version an 8.8. Praise was given to the environments, control scheme, and soundtrack. Criticisms included latency issues with the online multiplayer, odd physics glitches, and the lack of freestyle tricks in both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game (although it is possible to do lip tricks because of the unique grind engine built into the game). However, IGN have since edited their review of Skate, deleting the paragraph to do with complaints of the PS3 version being worse than the 360 version, after sources on the internet lead them to believe there is no difference between the two versions of the game, despite user reviews. IGN has not changed the scoring for the PS3 version of Skate. GameSpot gave it a 7.5 for the Xbox 360 version of the game and a 7.0 for the PS3 version. The reviews praised the game for a good start and innovation, but was criticized for the in-game advertising and product placement. . This resulted in its 0.5 lower score. GameSpy gave it a 5 star rating for the 360 version, praising it for the control scheme, presentation, expansive environments, audio, and amount of content. It was criticized for the learning curve, frustrating camera, and the slowdown in online game modes. Gamespy has since given the PS3 version a 5/5 as well.

Sequels
Main articles: Skate 2 and Skate 3

In February 2008, EA president Frank Gibeau stated in a presentation for industry analysts that the original game posted bigger numbers on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 than rival Tony Hawk's Proving Ground. Because of these numbers, the company had decided to begin work on a sequel. Skate 2 was officially announced in May 2008 and was released at the end of January 2009.

In September 2009, EA announced the third installment in the Skate franchise, Skate 3, which was released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in May 2010. The game is set in a new fictional city called Port Carverton. New gameplay features include the ability to perform dark slides and underflips and Skate 3 has a stronger emphasis on online team play than the previous games.

Skate 4 has been announced by EA although there hasn't been an official screenshot or actual gameplay to be revealed. Many fans have called it Skate 4 although no official title hasn't been revealed yet. The game is going to be developed by full circle which features the Cuz Parry and Deran Chung who are the creators of the original games.