By the time Tony Hawk released his third skateboarding game in 2001, we’d ollied into volcanoes, jammed with aliens in Roswell and donned Spider-Man’s costume to bust a Spidey Flip in a Mexican bullring.
Electronic Arts’ Skate 3, released this week for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (reviewed), doesn’t take gamers anywhere as exotic or over-the-top. And that’s its charm. The realistic setting and complex control scheme make for an engaging single-player experience, but it’s the wide range of online multiplayer options that make Skate gleam the cube.
Since the Skate series debuted in 2007, it has approached the nuts and bolts of skateboarding from a simulation perspective. Tony Hawk players might be able to pull off a 50-50 grind with the push of a single button, but Skate players must carefully line up, time and execute each trick with the tilt and flick of the controller’s two analog sticks. At first, this complex system can feel punishing. But once you get the hang of it, the game’s controls become a foundation that each player can use to develop their own virtual skateboarding style.
Skate 3 adds a handful of new moves like darkside flips and underflips. But the big news in this outing is the change of scenery. One big complaint of Skate players was that the first two games felt samey because they were both set in the fictional city of San Vanelona, California. Skate 3 puts down roots in an entirely new fake burg. Port Carverton is a sprawling urban haven that is home to a handsome, concrete-heavy university campus, a cluttered-but-line-filled seaside dock and more skate parks than you can shake your deck at.
Skate 3 seems determined to shake loose the last few skateboarding game clichés that still linger from the days when Tony Hawk established the genre. Rather than starting as a nobody trying to claw his way to the top, players find themselves cast as an established skate legend starting a board company.
All the game’s activities are framed around the notion of building a team and selling skateboards. Luckily, you’re not on the hook to run the cash register or order lumber. You just have to rip it up and your reputation will move the units.
The career path here is more nonlinear than ever. It’s quite easy to simply stumble upon contests, photo shoots and spots to kill. And Skate 3 does an admirable job of bringing all these activities online. Nearly every undertaking in the game can be tag-teamed with friends or random online skaters.
Some of these tasks can be brute-forced by the power of numbers. But stunts that ask all six skaters to execute a trick in unison require serious precision and teamwork — a tall order when half your online buds are pretty much guaranteed to be smoking buds.
Online Features Rule — When They Work
Skate 3 ‘s community site features team-building tools and methods for sharing video, photos and user-generated skate parks. These generous features are well-woven into the fabric of the game and better than most you’ll find in many online games — when they’re working.
Sadly, during the week before the game was released and part of the first day it was live, much of the off-site stuff, such as blogs and news feeds that keep you abreast of your friends’ progress, that are supposed to load when you fire up Skate 3 did not work right. The same can be said for the website: My player profile only loaded half the time. These launch snafus are the kind of thing you expect to get hashed out eventually. I hope this happens soon, because all those social bells and whistles are pretty neat.
Still, none of them would be worth a strip of grip tape if Port Carverton weren’t a fun place to explore and shred. In my early hours with the game, I found myself distracted by a steep hill that emptied out into the parking lot for the campus’ track and field complex. I spent half an hour bombing the hill, trying to reach maximum speed and catch huge air off a couple of ramps that I spawned from thin air and dropped into a crosswalk.
Once I nailed the trick I wanted — a massive leap that took me over the tops of a row of palm trees — I paused the game and spent another half-hour tweaking the footage generated by the game’s always-on video camera. Once I got the clip just right, I uploaded it to my online skate profile for all the world to see.
I didn’t gain a single achievement or meet a single Skate 3 goal in that hour, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t gaming time well spent. I look forward to many more hours spent precisely the same way in the gnarly, opportunity-filled skateboarding sandbox of Port Carverton.
WIRED Tight, refined skateboarding; potentially robust online features; mellow Port Carverton vibe.
TIRED Online hiccups mar interaction between community site and game; slight homesickness for San Vanelona’s dead-on Faux Cal.
$60, Electronic Arts
Rating: 
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