Gameplayer: Skate 2 Hands On

Gameplayer Writes:

There has been a Tony Hawk’s game every year since the series began in 1999. Every year except 2008. For the first time in nearly a decade an entire calendar year will pass without a skating game endorsed by the Birdman hitting shelves. We almost certainly have Skate to thank for that.

We hate to appear fickle, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 remains a real personal favourite of many of the team on gameplayer, but the Tony Hawk’s series became over-indulgent and bloated. The times, they were a-changin’ – and Tony wasn’t. Skate, however, altered the way we looked at skating games. Skate altered the way we look at sports games. Most impressive of all, it didn’t do it gradually – it did it immediately. It didn’t take Skate a few sequels to eventually usurp the big-brand heavyweight – it did that first time out.