Skate 3 Review

So I will start this review by saying that I never much got into the first Skate game. I did own it after losing all hope in the Tony Hawk franchise. I just think that early adopters of the game kinda got screwed. The game was by no means bad and it looked and played well but the difficulty factor on a brand new control scheme can be devastating and it drove me away. I skipped Skate 2 and had no qualms with not playing it. I however as of late have kept seeing commercials for Skate 3. I didn't have the money to go out and drop $60 but I waited and found my local game rental store to check it out.

When turning on the game my first impressions is that the game looks great. I am not sure how much of a difference there is between all the games but I can say I love the look of this one. Overall the general feel and the customization open up for a lot of cool things you can do. I can however say that the story is completely pointless in almost every way. I found myself skipping all the story sections just to complete tasks to get board sales. I'm not saying this is bad because some people who love skating and skaters will sit through these. I on the other hand skated when I was young but was never good, but still really loved skating games.

The reason I loved the old Tony Hawk games was the freedom to just skate. You could do whatever you wanted at any time. The first Skate had this feature but due to the learning curve it never felt the same. I have heard that in Skate 2 the off-board controls were awful but I can say that this has been addressed from what I have heard it was. This makes getting off the board and running to start a line easy as hell along with the line markers you can drop. The game has gotten free skate down finally and I couldn't be happier. I had to take the game back today with about 80% complete and I can say when I have the cash I will definitely get this one if for nothing more than to randomly drop in and skate the amazing locales in the game.

This brings me to my last set of points. Due to my renting of the game I was not allowed to participate in the online factor of the game without paying an extra $10 to access it. I understand new copies of the game come with a code for this and this is to try and hurt used sales and generate new ones. I don't agree with this but I understand to an extent why but in the long run that will make me have to wait to get the game longer due to cash constraints. My only other complaint with the game is the soundtrack. I understand there are a lot of licensed tracks but come on people...make it so we can do custom soundtracks. I would love to pull up music on my PS3 and skate to what I want. Other than that and a few other minor complaints I would recommend this game if you like skating or skating games but be warned while they have made the game a little easier...it is only a little easier.

Skate 3 - 8.7 out of 10