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true Game: Street Sk8er Platform: PS1 Year Released: 1999 <img src="/contributed/1198775644Llsu7EDRmR.jpg" width="320" height="320"> Was there ever a game that you loved to play, even though you were fully aware that it wasn’t really that great? For me, that game was Street Sk8er, which came out in 1999 for the PS1. Since it was made by Electronic Arts, who also made this year’s fantastic skate., you might think that they knew a thing or two about making skating simulators. Not so much. At first I was blind to the game’s flaws, but upon many replays, they became more glaringly obvious. Street Sk8er came out several months before the release of the first Tony Hawk game, which would go on to change extreme sports games forever. At the time, it was a little more acceptable for a skating game to be so limited. However, once Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater came out, Street Sk8er was quickly forgotten, and for good reason. <img src="/contributed/11987756027Rsr3y0DSM.jpg" width="320" height="226"> The concept behind the game is simple and stated right in the title. As one of several playable characters, you skate through different cities, trying to rack up enough points to unlock other cities, more characters, and different paths within the level you’re playing. As per usual, there are many rails and ramps placed throughout each level, and a timer limits the amount of time you have to do tricks before crossing the finish line. One of the early things I noticed about this game is that it had real songs from actual punk bands, and it was one of the first games I can remember having real music in it. That was pretty new to me back in the days of the PS1, and I was a big fan of the soundtrack. Many of the bands featured in the game have, like the game itself, faded into obscurity since 1999. <img src="/contributed/1198775636w4ndWcVyRd.jpg" width="320" height="215"> Nothing about this game is actually broken or unplayable. The controls take all of five seconds to figure out and consistently work fine. The graphics, while not revolutionary, are about on par for PlayStation games. What’s wrong with this game lies almost entirely in what it lacks. There are only a handful of tricks you can do, all of which take merely a push of the D-pad in some direction and tapping on of the shape buttons. While you can discover new paths within each location, the fact that there are only three main cities leads to quite a lot of repetition. The character selection screen seems to be the part of the game that’s most fully fleshed out, for some reason. You can unlock more skateboarders (and even a ninja on rollerblades!), change their outfits, and eventually increase their skills to make them faster or more controlled. Still, this doesn’t make up for the mediocre and repetitive gameplay; four tricks only keep you amused for so long. You can easily unlock everything in a single day, and after that the replay value drops drastically. <img src="/contributed/1198775613PYZuyThnUl.jpg" width="320" height="212"> So why do I like this game way more than I should? I really couldn’t tell you. I’m aware of every way it fails to deliver, and have managed to stay unbiased in scoring the game for this review. It’s still mildly fun, the kind of bargain bin title worth picking up to keep you amused for a couple of hours. As a full game, though, Street Sk8er sadly falls flat.</img></img></img></img> review

2007-12-27T12:18:56-05:00

1689

2007-12-27T06:31:31-05:00

2007-12-27T12:18:56-05:00

5.0

throwback_thursday_street_sk8er published Thousands of Tricks! And By Thousands, I Mean Four -

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