Skate 2

Do you know what’s wrong with videogames?

Skateboarding.

There are only a handful of industries in 2008 that have such little respect within the fashionable world of faux-hawks and yoga pants, that they have to rely on Skateboarding; The age old sport that we all grew up partaking in, and losing interest in as soon as we understood that girls might fuck us.

But rely on Skate 2 the industry must, because along with guns with chainsaws and plastic guitars, there aint a whole lot going on right now that’s keeping the industry at the forefront of the Esquire magazine.

I should know, I subscribe.

S2 picks up, believe it or not, exactly where S1 left off, being that both games are exactly the fucking same. Oh yeah, you can walk around, and move some garbage bins, but you’re still skating around the same streets of Vancouver/LA/Barcelona. You’re still being asked to make random movements with your right thumb, in an attempt to complete specific tricks, and you’re still being bored (pun intended) stupid by the repetitious nature of a videogame centered on skateboarding.

Tell me if I’m wrong, but skateboarding for me was all about trying to fit In, and look cool. It was also about progression. The better the tricks you could do, the cooler you were, and the more friends you had. So surely there’s something backwards about a singular experience, in your house, on your own, trying to do fake tricks, in a fake city, on a fake skateboard? Who the fuck are you going to impress with that? Guaranteed your wife won’t give a shit, even if she might enjoy the remixed Bob Marley tracks, and you’re sure as shit not going to pick up a girl in a club with tales of your three-sixty flips in a videogame.

So what is the reason for this game? I was holed up in EA Burnaby for a few hours, playing a retardedly buggy build with a bunch of guys who obviously had no fucking clue about Skate culture, or what it takes to make a decent videogame.

“When he’s moving the trash can, I want to see his muscles bulge”, one young gentleman mentioned in the Q&A. It took every inch of my reserve to not stand up, salute the queen, and call him a retard. Once again, another (fatter) guy stood up, with his Vancouver Canucks T-Shirt in full view, and mentioned,

“The game is so close to real skateboarding”.

This time, I cracked.

The fact that there are people involved with this hobby who truly believe that Skate is a revolutionary experience, and that it somehow bridges the gap between real, cutting-edge culture and videogames makes me cringe. When will this industry grow the fuck up, employ some kids that know what the fuck they’re talking about, and leave the programmers and mathematicians to their Linux forums and Anime.

I do miss 1998 though. Skateboarding was fucking cool.