Dear mr Hawk,

We have recently had the announcement of your new Tony Hawk Ride game and the new motion based controller that can be used to make the on screen skater perform tricks as you hop, flip and ollie the board in front of your TV.

Tony, what you fail to realize is that “gimmicks” and “novelty” items and ideas like this, in my opinion, take the player AWAY from skateboarding, not towards it. Computer games are about immersion and making the impossible, possible – but there has to be a line drawn in the grip tape somewhere.

We, as skaters, want real skating.
We want real skate spots.
We want realistic tricks (with the option to allow the odd triple backflip to tail grab nose slide across a rooftop – to fakie now and again).
We want real skaters.
We want proper online capabilities with video editing and upload.
We don’t want to have the piss taken out of us by the use of silly comments, violence, skitching, comedy characters or “ollie the bum” type contests.

Skateboarding is our religion – our way of life – a part of our everyday existence and we will only play your games when it rains. So please, make it good. Your future in this industry hinges on this game – I hope you realize this. Since the Skate franchise, the real skaters out there expect more – want more and hope you will deliver more.

I’m sure that the readers of SkaterGeek.com will join me in agreeing that you are one of the most amazing skaters ever – apart from Rodney Mullen and that you, and you alone have taken Skateboarding to a new level worldwide – and a probably responsible for us all picking up a skateboard.

Please Tony – don’t let us down.

Today, being the 23rd of Jan 2009 is the official launch day of Skate 2 by Electronic Arts and Black Box.

Despite there being some bad press, sore user reviews of the demo and overall apathy at the inclusion of some Tony Hawk style features, Skate 2 still guarantees to be the best skateboarding console game out there!

Bring it on!

Check out the Gamespy Skate 2 Review.
Another greate review by EDGE magazine.

There is also news around the web that for 400 microsoft points, you can unlock the entire Skate 2 game – giving you all of the areas, decks and extras that would normally take you 30 hours to complete!

I bet you don’t get the achievements though!

See you online!  Add me on Xbox Live.  My gamertag is Taoski.

Ok. I have something to admit. I have not yet completed EA Skate!

What?

I get too hung up skating single spots over and over again rather than cruising down hills or completing objectives set by a “homie”.  I stick to my skating roots and session a spot, then move on.

My current favorite is the “yellow ramps” area in the school yard.  Know where I mean?

Anyway.. I came across this video of another of my favorite spots – “Regs”.  There are some sweet little drops and tricks to be had in this area and these H-Street guys are pulling off some sick airs and lip tricks in the mini ramp.

Check it out!

Where else is a good spot to session?  I will throw it open to you, the SkaterGeek reader.  Put down your PS3 controller and tell me!

Ok…

I’m getting scared now.

Skitching
(i.e. “ski-hitching” or “skate-hitching”) is the act of hitching a ride on the rear bumper of a car when there is ice or slick snow on the roads. It is also sometimes commonly referred to as Bumper Hitching. This can also be done with a skateboard or roller skates in urban areas where there is no ice or snow. In addition, skitching can be performed on a bicycle.

This does look like it will be useful to gather more speed for tricks and get pulled up those massive hills in San Van.

But again… it is looking more and more like the Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise.

[youtube]L4F-7jSxPQ0[/youtube]

An excellent, all out, balls to the grindstone, full speed technical smash of EA Skate action.

It’s a little “Hawk” at times – but great stuff!

The GDC 2008 in San Francisco finished just over a week ago and left us drooling after getting more concrete details for franchise updates such as Gears Of War 2 and Mario Kart Wii.

But where was Skate 2?

Where was the tech demo showing some new stuff like getting off the board and night/day weather effects?

Ok, Skate was only released late last year, but still, in the traditional EA method of churning out yearly release after yearly release (and slowly making the games worst each time) we should be getting some Skate 2 news on our radar any week now!

If you read between the lines, does this mean that Skate 2 will become Skate 2009? Or is EA waiting to see/hear about the next version of the Tony Hawk franchise?

After all, they know they are beat and will come out of the corner fighting!

Several titles did well against direct competitors. SKATE, a new and highly rated IP from our Black Box studio, outperformed an entrenched competitor. Despite the fact that we launched on three fewer platforms, we realized a 55% revenue share in North America. On current generation systems, SKATE outsold Tony Hawk nearly 2 to 1.

So. There you have it from the horses mouth. EA Skate outsells Tony Hawk Proving Ground by 2 copies to 1.

It will be interesting to see what Mr Hawk comes back with next. I expect it to be a Skate rip-off with all the extra bits added that we all want.

Take it like a man Tony.

Via Xbox360Fanboy

As featured on Skatergeek before, Guy Mariano appears in another video made using EA Skate trying to replicate his part in the excellent Fully Flared Lakai Skateboarding DVD.

Watch the original and then watch the EA Skate version.

Let me know what you think!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltG2JHkknKM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_NzxrkuhIA[/youtube]

It’s a Monday, it’s the afternoon, it’s my coffee time – it must be time for me to post my Video Of The Week!
This week, some cool action from Project 0mega.  Especially love that last jump over the rail!

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=ohzlIQXaIso[/youtube]

And yes… it’s EA Skate again!

If you can show me some good Tony Hawk footage you have made – then let me know!!!

I know that the EA Skate Reel is not the best format for sharing your compiled images, videos and experiences – but at the moment it’s all we have.

The fact that it is still in Beta is, in my opinion, admittance by EA that they have not really spent any time sorting it out.

With the issues people have logging into the Skate Reel site, linking their gamertags and finding their videos it’s not surprising that the site has not crawled out of Beta yet.

What would you change about the site to make it a better experience for all?