Almost two years after the original Skate game hit the console world, the franchise returns in Skate 2 that revisits the franchise with an interesting story and once again the award winning gameplay of the original with a few new tweaks and twists.

The story, although clichéd revolves around a “skater” who has been released from prison after 5-years of incarceration to discover that his home city New San Vanelona has been thoroughly “redeveloped” by a nefarious mega-corporation. Now it’s time to return to the skate scene and challenge the institution in order to rebuild the skate scene. Unfortunately for you, the authorities have also banned skating in most parts of the city that makes your challenge a little more difficult.

Features:

• Inverts, one-foots, hippy jumps, finger flips, the list goes on..

• A new look and feel to the city... time to make New San Van a skater's paradise.

• Put the two of them together, create your own spots, and you've got sick new game play.

• Hall of Meat: Broken bones anyone?

• New and improved skate.Reel: It's back and better than ever.

• Deeper Create-A-Skater: Make your skater truly your own.

Before engaging into Skate 2, the game contains a rather apt tutorial which will teach you the ropes before attempting to start your skating career. The tutorial will teach you the control system of the game and a variety of basic maneuvers in order to interact with the gaming environment.

Although the original game was a rather realistic skating game, as opposed to the Tony Hawke series, the control system was for some, a tad difficult to master and thankfully EA Sports have addressed a variety of control issues, making this game a very playable skating title.

The game also contains a variety of different gameplay modes throughout the gaming world from “avoiding” the authorities, competing challenges from stunts to races and contests with other skaters and my favourite, the “Own the spot”  challenge that if you can beat the high score in a particular area, that area becomes yours.

You can even create your own spots and upload them to the EA Server  in order for others to attempt to break your challenge which is a great sense of ownership, depending how good are you.

By making a name for yourself in the game and by skating on a variety of areas thanks to Mongocorp which has turned the city into a skating paradise, competing against other skaters and doing a variety of photo shoots for magazines, you will eventually reclaim the city and needless to say it’s going to a be fun albeit frustrating ride.

The control system of Skate 2 has been improved since its predecessor which uses a variety of buttons on the controller plus the analog stick which assists in pulling off a variety skating maneuvers. There’s even a clever “Hall of Meat” mode which grades your character on the dangerous injuries that you inflict on your character such breaking your arms or legs which will also allow you to unlock bonuses.

Of course, there is a free skate mode for those down times that allows you to explore the gaming environment and just perform a variety of tricks which is quite fun and less stressfully then the main game. A fun little side quest!

It should also be noted that Skate 2 contains a decent online mode which include races, trick events and the likes as you jump, grind and flip your way to victory. There’s even an off-line four player mode that includes attempting to beat the other player through spot battle, hall of meat and S.K.A.T.E. where you attempt to copy each others moves. Although not as exciting as the online mode, it does give some great party game options.

Graphically, Skate 2 is a visually impressive game that contains exceptional character animations and background environments that is easily one of the most impressive looking skate games available.

Match that with a really thumping soundtrack that include some of the world’s top artists such as Black Sabbath and the Wu-Tang Clan, it really helps create a real skatingatmosphere. Of course, there’s some professional voice acting and a variety of skating-esq sound effects to nicely compliment the game itself.

With improved gameplay, Skate 2 is definitely a worthy successor that contains a slick presentation, a decent control system and some very impressive graphics. The only downside to the game is the strange way your characters walks, however fortunately you spend most of your times on your skateboard Some of the challenges are extremely frustrating in Skate 2, even with our resident skating guru Rick, however if you persevere, you will equally awarded. Needless to say, Skate 2 is definitely a fun game that we would recommend to all skating enthusiasts.