tricks

At the same time that we purchased Ratchet & Clank for PS3 we also bought EA Skate.

As skating games go this one is pretty good. The reviews of this game coming in around a high 7 to low 8 are pretty spot on.

What differentiates this game from other skating games is the ‘flick-it’ controls. Rather than push a button to start a trick, you ‘flick’ the right analog stick to perform Ollie and Nollie tricks. The tutorials throughout your career are pretty good and get you down the right path. It’ s all about timing and that takes some time to learn.

Throughout the career, I’ve had two times when pulling the appropriate trick was nearly impossible. In some challenges you’ll have to do a Nollie 360 and grind on something. It has to be a “Nollie 360″, not a “Nollie 360 Pop Shuvit”, or anything else that’s very similar. The differences between the two on the Analog stick are very hard to discern and do with consistency, at least for me. Of the two PS3 controllers that we have, one seems easier than the other. Perhaps it’s not as worn out?

What sucks about these types of challenges is that you must do the called for trick in the called for order. It would help if you could do a couple different types of tricks to satisfy the requirement.

The other bad part of this game is there is no walking. You ride everywhere. You have to Ollie up every little curb and step, which can sometimes make getting lined up for a run somewhat tricky. If you could stop, pickup your board, walk to where you want to be, set it down this game would be much more user friendly. I fully expect that will be implemented in the next installment of this game.

The game can get somewhat redundant at times, but forging forward to get the X-Games unlocked brings all kinds of fun.

I currently ‘Own’ my 16 year old son on X-Games Big Air He’s getting frustrated and there are still tricks that neither of us can pull with consistency.

Poking around the web you’ll find a number of ‘cheat sheets’ for the tricks. There aren’t any ‘cheats’ that I know of other than unlocking some clothes that you don’t want anyway.

This game takes time to master and certainly isn’t as much fun as saving the day and blowing stuff up, but as a sport game it is quite fun.

I highly recommend it. For me it was a lot more ‘realistic’ and fun than say a Tony Hawk game where you can pull any trick, any time, anywhere, w/o consequences.

I give it two thumbs up.