I’ve been looking forward to Skate 2 since about twenty minutes into playing Skate.  As much as I loved EA’s first skateboarding simulator, it didn’t take long before I was keenly aware of the game’s shortcomings.  In fact, even though the game offered ingenious new controls, a massive open world environment, and the best visuals ever seen in a skateboarding game, there were times that it felt more like a tech demo than a full game.  With the critical and financial success of Skate, a sequel was inevitable, and most gamers hoped for a few specific additions and improvements to the game’s mechanics, controls and environment.  When EA announced that Skate 2 would include many of those specific changes, fans became even more excited about the sequel, expecting a fully fleshed-out experience that would put the original to shame.

The Skate 2 demo launched today on Xbox Live, giving gamers their first chance to check out the new moves, new look, and new San Vanelona that the game has to offer, and to wash the awful taste of Skate It out of their mouths.  So how do the first ten minutes of Skate 2 match up to its predecessor?

The first thing you’ll notice is that the camera has been pulled back a bit from the previous game.  Instead of viewing the action from the ground beneath your rear wheel, you can now see your skater from a less extreme angle, giving you a much better view of your surroundings and your skater.  The camera will still occasionally get stuck behind walls and do other wonky things, much like in the first game, but it’s not a huge problem and rarely causes real problems.  The camera isn’t the only graphical change to the game.  Skate 2 uses a slightly brighter color palette than Skate.  It’s still not a bright and cheery world, but there’s significantly more color saturation and the game no longer looks like the fever dream of a heroin addict.  Sadly, character models actually seem to have taken a step back in quality.  Skin textures are grainy and odd, and created male characters look disturbingly simian.  Female characters fair somewhat better, and everyone is well-animated, but it’s a surprise and shame that the actual skaters don’t look as good as they did a year ago.  Due to the ragdoll physics implemented in Skate, bailing was often a visual treat.  This aspect has been upgraded as well, producing more realistic and hilarious animations for doomed skaters.  Also, low-speed collisions with rails and walls will now send you into a bail animation that actually has you land on your feet.  This is a very nice touch, and one that increases the game’s realism significantly.

All the controls you got used to in Skate are still here, and there are plenty of new mechanics thrown in as well.  Handplants, footplants, hippy jumps and step-off moves like the “No Comply” all make their first appearance in Skate 2, and each move is implemented in a way that makes perfect sense within the existing control scheme.  To do a handplant, simply hold the Right Bumper as you reach the top of a quarterpipe.  You can then tweak the handplant by quickly pressing a direction on the right analog stick or any of the face buttons.  Hippy Jumps, probably the most difficult maneuvers to complete in Skate, are far more simple this time around.  Pressing, then releasing the A and X buttons sends your skater off your board, ready to hop over picnic tables and rails as your board glides under them.  Footplants require you to hold a trigger and either A or X while in the air to land on one foot, then hop back off it.  Step-off moves work similarly, except from the ground instead of in the air.  Both footplants and step-offs give you a boost, allowing you to reach areas you otherwise wouldn’t have.  There are also plenty of new tweaks to existing moves as well giving the game over twice the tricks as last time.  Anyone who felt short-changed by the amount of tricks in Skate should be very happy with the vast array of grabs, flips and plants in Skate 2.

One of the biggest complaints about Skate was the inability to get off your board.  Being cemented to your board often made navigating the staircase-laden San Vanelona a chore.  This time around, you have much more freedom.  Getting on and off your board is as simple as pressing Y, allowing you to roam freely.  You can also run and jump while off your board, allowing you to get creative with off-board tricks.  Sadly, controlling your skater on foot is extremely clunky and unresponsive.  Still, it’s a huge addition to the series that helps alleviate a lot of the frustration from the first game.

The demo offers two modes; Career mode, which teaches you the basics of the game, and Party Play mode, which allows you to compete with a friend in one of two challenges.  The first of these is a simple point challenge, called Spot Battle, giving each competitor 3 runs in a single spot to post their best single trick.  New to the series is the Hall of Meat mode, which pits skaters against each other in a test to see who can cause more bodily harm to themselves in three tries.  It’s silly, but many gamers feel that a little more wacky fun is exactly what the game needs.

Overall, Skate 2 looks better, feels better, has twice as many moves, more freedom of movement and more things to do than Skate did.  It also gives you the ability to move objects around the city to reach new areas.  Basically, there’s very little in Skate 2 that Skate fans will dislike, and plenty of new stuff that will likely draw in new fans.  We’ll see how the full release compares to the demo in two weeks, but based on the first ten minutes, we’re going to be very, very happy.

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