Rant #1: Skate vs Tony Hawk

For the past 10 years there has been one franchise that had an absolute strangle hold on the skateboard video game genre. What game am i speaking of? You guessed it, Tony hawk. From the day I bought the original Tony Hawk on the PS1 I was hooked. I've always wanted to skateboard but being a hockey player I felt it wasn't worth the risk, so i stayed away from it. So along comes this game where I can live out my dream of skating like the pros from the comfort of my own couch, count me in. Now about 9 years later Tony Hawk games are still being cranked out year after year, and they are still solid for the most part. Every year something new gets added, and it USUALLY does something to make the game better. For the past 9 years this has been fine with me and most of the video game community, a new game every year that's slightly tweaked but still fun to play. In comes a competitor, just another generic Tony Hawk rip off trying to take a little piece of Activision's pie, right? WRONG! Skate is breath of fresh air in this tired old genre that has been built off ridiculous combos and huge airs that no one could ever pull off in real life. My whole reason for getting into Tony Hawk games in the first place was because I wanted to skateboard in real life, and I thought Tony Hawk gave me that experience, but boy oh boy was i wrong.

So lets start off by comparing the games controls. I don't think I need to go into too much detail on here about Tony Hawks Controls since I'm sure that if you have read my rant this far you've played a Tony Hawk game before. I will briefly give an overview of the way Tony hawk works. To perform a trick you hit a button and move the stick in a direction to vary what trick you do when you hit that button. For example, Lets say you want to do a kick flip, all flip tricks would be mapped to lets say X on the controller so you would ollie and hit X and Left to perform your desired trick. Grinds and grabs work in the same manner. In skate, they completely rethought the way a skateboarding game should be played. All your flip tricks are done by moving the right stick in a certain manner. So, for a kick flip you would pull back on the right stick and push it forward and to the left slightly. Since its hard to describe exactly how skate works, why don't I show you. Now i ask you, which one sounds more fluid, more like really skating? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say most of you will have said skate.

A major problem I have found with Tony Hawk that I never really felt before skate is the lack of realism. People in real life can't jump off roofs and land on power wires and grind them for 45 minutes while performing trick after trick mid grind. It just doesn't make sense. So EA took a look at this formula that Tony Hawk has and said flush it, we're going to make a skateboard game for skaters, one that really feels like skating. Well, they succeeded, granted the game is not completely realistic. However the fact of the matter is, what game is? In terms of capturing the over feel of skateboarding they have leaped ahead of Tony Hawk by miles. They have actually found a way to take a bunch of buttons and joysticks and make it feel like a little skateboard in your hands.

In terms of overall fun factor, for me, skate. wins. I love feeling like I'm really skateboarding. Its so satisfying to pull of tricks in the skate. that in Tony Hawk would just be commonplace and simple. Something as simple as lining up a nice grind can feel like you accomplished something. However, there may be people out there who would find skate. frustrating and would rather be pulling off crazy combos with the touch of a button, and for them I say stick with Tony Hawk because it works for you. However if you are looking for something a little more satisfying to play i recommend checking out skate.

Overall, in my opinion, without question i give skate. the edge. I'm not alone in my opinion either as Game Rankings has Tony Hawks Proving Grounds with a lower score that skate. THPG is listed at 79.9% average score while skate is at 86.8%. (both scores for the Xbox 360 versions) So, regardless of what game your feel is better, or how loyal you are to Tony Hawk, you NEED to check out skate, at the very least download the demo and give it a shot, because you may find yourself as hooked as you were the first time you played a Tony Hawk!

I would like to take this time to welcome Camden Boyd aka Cam B, former professional Halo 2 player, and my new co-author. He will be posting about halo, and what he feels is the best halo game of all time! Stay tuned right here for that because it promises to be a great read!