Recent reviews by Pudding

holy crap

Note: Over 50 hours in the pre-alpha playtest.

This game is a tale of two halves: One half picked straight from the original games and dropped into this reboot in fantastic form; The other, created in a board room meeting where preexisting skate fans were already marked as guaranteed customers, and where the young, microtransaction conditioned Fortnite audience was their new target.

On one half, Full Circle has presented us with, in my opinion, the best feeling skateboarding game ever made. As someone with over 300 hours in Skater XL, and around 50 in Session, along with hundreds of hours in the original Skate trilogy, I truly think this physics engine is masterful, if still developing. The little things, like landing in a revert to smoothly complete an undershot spin, fluid grind switch-ups, wallies, carving into coping on vert, all make this feel like the most fleshed out skate sim ever created. Most animations are extremely smooth and feel very satisfying to watch (throwing down while sprinting looks awesome). While some things are missing, notably darkslides, and footplants, and some animations are still a bit janky, like slappies on curbs, these are all things that can be fixed as the game matures in early access.

On the other half is what can't be fixed in early access, though. Literally every other part of this game is fundamentally broken and spits in the face of what the series core identity is: The complete lack of skate culture; The bland, corporate, frankly unfinished visuals; The egregious microtransaction model; The absence of solo mode, requiring you to constantly be surrounded by emoting players more concerned about hall of meat than skating; The omission of real skaters, brand deals, tournaments, or a cohesive story at all.

The original Skate trilogy (especially 1 and 2) served to capture gritty and understated skate culture in a way no game had or has since. The highlights of those games weren't climbing onto floating mega ramps in the sky, they were playing S.K.A.T.E with Mike Carroll, or framing the perfect cover shot for your magazine debut. Even in Skate 3, where they jumped the shark ( literally! ), Black Box was very deliberate in allowing you to experience the game how you wanted. The map is full of humble street spots, but if you wanted to go crazy and do a triple front flip christ air, the game wouldn't stop you.

Skate gives you no such agency. The immersion of being a local skater in a gritty neighborhood is shattered when 10 players in rainbow outfits are emoting and flying off of bright yellow floating bowls. It's shattered when you take a look around and realize this world was created to be a jungle gym more than it was a believable city. It's shattered in the first 2 minutes of the tutorial, when a floating robot with forced "edgy" humor that has been neutered to a G rating, directs you to climb up a castle wall like Ezio Auditore to retrieve a floating skateboard, drop in on a 100 foot vertical mega ramp and air over a canyon before smugly commenting "That was verified huge. You made that mega look mini."

Another core part of Skate's identity is progression. In the same way that modern racing games (*cough* Forza Horizon *cough*) have been ruined by assigning vehicle unlocks to a slot machine, Skate has been ruined by replacing any sense of career progression with loot boxes. In the trilogy, you would unlock Vans shoes by progressing your career, getting a sponsorship with them, and shooting some pics for billboards while you rep their products. This not only felt natural and helped immerse you into the world of skating, but it allowed for rewarding progression, and the feeling of accomplishment when you've skated hard enough to wear your favorite clothes. Now, no such reward loop exists. You go to any randomly spawning goal, each one is extremely bland and repetitive (collect all these bolts and do a kickflip!), and you get points to go gamble away for a blue t shirt instead of a black one. Oh, you want those aforementioned Vans? 5 real dollars please, for one colorway of Sk8-His. What is supposed to keep players coming back to this game?

You may think that the story would solve that problem. Sure, we no longer unlock cool clothes or boards, but at least you'll be able to meet pros, compete in competitions, and make a name for yourself in magazines and team videos, right? THIS GAME HAS NO STORY! None. Zero. No magazines. No tournaments or competitions. X Games, Goofy Vs Regular, Maloof Money Cup, Thrasher Mag, The Skateboard Mag. Not a single pro skater to compete against or team up with. No funny commentary when you bail from your cameraman Reda or Shingo (Shingo and Slappy are actually both in this game, but are reduced to stale quest givers). Again, what is supposed to bring players back to this game? Aside from fans who have been pumping hours into Skater XL and Session to scratch the skate sim itch, what will keep the average gamer here for longer than 30 minutes of messing with the flick it system?

Here is what almost surely happened in the EA board rooms when concocting this game. EA wanted a live service, social playground to compete for time with Fortnite, GTA Online, Roblox, etc. - a game with no barrier to entry, microtransactions at scale, and an aesthetic targeted towards the generation of consumers who have no problem sacrificing game design for the dopamine hits of loot boxes. EA also heard the cries of the niche, diehard fanbase to revive the Skate series, but were too worried about the drop in relevance of skateboarding culture since the original games released to commit to a new mainline entry. These desires meshed into what we have today: a skateboarding game only by definition, not by identity. A game that exploits their core fans' desperation to help propel EA to reach their real target audience. A game whose initial promise was to really be the Skate game we all wanted (remember the 'We're working on it' reveal video? "It reminds me of Skate 2!" "Oh cool, you're listening to the fans!"). This was intentional manipulation of the pre-existing fanbase to serve a financial goal.

And that's the real gut punch of this entire scenario. No matter what, no matter who you are, it's a lose-lose. If this game flops, EA will point to this game and the decline of skate culture as a reason to permanently shut the book on Skate games. If it succeeds and becomes a cash cow, EA will have no financial incentive to ever make a single player, story focused Skate game again. Why would they if this microtransaction model proves lucrative? Why would they ever pay to license pros and spend time crafting a rags to riches story when this minimal effort model works?

TLDR: Skate is a brilliant skateboarding engine trapped in a soulless, laughably anti-skate culture world that is too fundamentally broken to be redeemed in an Early Access window, and whose developer has no plans nor incentive to fix. The existence of this game can only serve to harm fans of the franchise and the skateboarding culture at large. The initial popup asking if you've played Skate 3 and if you care about skateboarding culture is a filter system. If you answer yes to either, EA knows you are not their target audience.

Side note, EA has been relentlessly virtue signaling that they're "embodying rebellious, inclusive, marginalized-empowering skate culture" by not restricting clothing items or body shapes to any given gender or facial model, or by adding a slider to give your character vitiligo. This ♥♥♥♥ is disgusting. If they truly cared about the culture, they would do what THPS 3+4 did, and include Felipe Nunes or Leo Baker as skaters in the game. Oh right, that would mean the devs would have to make a story to put them in...

People like to dismiss this game's praise because of how legendary the original is. "The OG is the best horror game ever made, so of course this game is good." That sentiment typically comes from those who haven't played both. In reality, this remake is extremely transformative, taking liberties to rework entire sections of the game, and deeply expand on the story presented in the original. With a game as heavy and as beloved as the original, one wrong addition to the story, one line of dialogue delivered too on the nose, one pause held for just a bit too long, one building that takes just a bit too long to work through, one track remade that strays just a bit too far from the original tone, one gameplay slider tuned a bit too high to make James a little too strong, and the entire experience could've toppled over and been ruined. What's remarkable is, through the vast amount of changes made to the gameplay, the world design, and the story, every single one shows deep understanding and love for the source material, and this remake somehow manages to soar above one of the greatest video games ever made.