TheXboxLife

Look out Tony Hawk fans, there is a new skateboarding game coming to a video game store near you! After years of the Tony Hawk series dominating the console-gaming world as far as skateboarding games go, Skate 3 has mustered out the strength to give gamers a little more to play for — complete and utter control through the analog sticks. Skate 3 offers a unique control system that is dominated by the analog sticks, allowing for the gamer to have much more interaction and feel while achieving and completing massive combination tricks.

What may seem as an “anti-Tony Hawk” game, Skate 3 offers a lot more control over the movements of the character, but it comes at a price, it’s not insanely perfect. The left analog stick will be used to control the skater movement, with the right being the control of skateboard flips. The triggers are used for various grabs, and in the end, as much interactiveness may come from the unique controls, it does make it difficult to replicate certain tricks. Considering many tricks are very similar in base, this may cause some challenges when trying to pull off a specific trick in a competition. Though it can cause a level of frustration for the gamer, a little practice and perfection will surely ease the pain and allow you to become a true master of the board.



With the unique control design, the gamers biggest challenge off the bat is mastering various grinds. In real life, skateboarders must perfect the heights of their jumps to nail certain rails, and in Skate 3, this is no different. The game is all about timing, so if you demonstrate a level of grace with the analog sticks, the gamer will quickly catch onto the art of ollieing. At times this may become different because of the camera angle, but lining up your grinds will come in time.

The career mode can offer some challenges, like really knowing your city and skate zone. Certain objectives can only be completed in certain areas depending on the criteria, so being familiar with the area is definitely a huge plus. Along with this you’ll complete challenges that may be point, trick or time based. Overall, there are many different aspects to the career mode so it’ll take practice to master everything.



You can travel around the city exploring different spots, and even open up hidden spots such as X Games areas, which is pretty cool. The loading times are fairly quick unless you are attempting to warp to specific areas. It’s not a big deal unless you are trying to achieve the same objective over and over again.

Because of the significance of timing in the game, the online mode really suffers. Playing against users with a slower connection than yourselves highly damages the game play because of the glitchyness of the timing. Personally, though, this isn’t a game I’d get just to play online.

Overall, Skate 3 offers a unique gaming experience and is definitely a move in the right direction for the franchise. With enough tweaks, this game could easily become the king of the skateboarding game industry, and is definitely worth the benjamins to pick up a copy.



8/10