Skate 3 Demo Impressions (#skate3)

Who's up for a sesh then?.. Not that kind of sesh. A Skate-tastic one of course.

The Demo has finally made its way onto the marketplace and psn network and it brings with it Coach Frank and a whole load of new path to get your skate on. What differs from Skate and Skate 2 then you ask.. Click that shiny, coloured word below for my personal insight.

Danny Way and co are finally about to be back on our consoles, showing us a world many skaters can only dream of. Being that i'm not an actual skater myself, many of you may be interested in just what attracts me to this game.

First of all the one thing that brings me to the game is the fact I more than appreciate a good bit of open world to explore. Add to it that i get to explore this world on a piece of wood with wheels and i'm sold. Skateboarding is something i only youthily tried when i was young, dumb and fearless. I wouldn't go near a board these days over fear of falling and breaking something. Skate allows me to do all these things without the actual pain you see.

Back in the day I was a massive fan of the Tony Hawk's skateboarding games. The first to the third especially. They then went the underground route and i appreciated their first effort but from Underground 2 and beyond i lost total interest in the games at all. They became far too gimmicky for my liking. Riding around on a bull as Bam Margera isn't what i call skateboarding at all.

I was skateboard-less up until late 2007. Another day of casually browsing the net brought me to a bunch of videos detailing a new skateboarding game, that was cunningly called "SKATE". I followed news on the game up until launch and played away helplessly for months trying to perfect the refreshing control scheme.

Then came Skate 2 in early 2009. Yet another breath of fresh air and a massive improvement over the original SKATE. For one, you could venture off your board. Wow! :)

But now comes along Skate 3. Promising even more improvement on its predecessor. It promises massive online team options including your own logos, apparel and even skate parks. The create-a-park has certainly been wanted since the original back in 2007.

The single-player story centers around sales of your own personal boards aswell as continuing to stay up amongst the top skaters around. New territory, new proving grounds so to speak. The action has finally moved and takes place in a new town, known as, Port Caverton.

The demo was released earlier last week on the 15th of April and i had it downloaded as soon as i set eyes on it. As is the norm for skate demos, there was sadly still a time limit on the download. We had 20 minutes to enjoy a taste of Skate 3's delights.

Speaking of the time limit, going through the tutorials shockingly added to the time limit, giving us even less time to eventually explore what the demo really offered. The tutorials simply re-introduced the game mechanics. They were more or less the same tutorials as the other two skates. Asking you to perform movement, an ollie here, a kickflip there. Nothing too hard for veterans of the franchise. So a quick note to those who are familiar with the game.. SKIP the tutorial and get more game time in.

Outwith the tutorials. I managed to take part in 2 or 3 events. The first being a points session if i remember rightly and secondly a hall of meat introduction. Safe to assume then that i stretched the hall of meat intro out and fairly enjoyed it once more. They've added a sweet bone view to your destruction as you smack your head, body, feet..(you get the picture) off the solid, concrete ground. The sickening sound of flesh hitting the ground is still in also. Still cringe everytime i do it but it just adds to the fun of the mode.

Being honest I didn't find much else to do in the demo in the 20 minutes given to me but i'm fairly positive about the game so far. My only drawback is the fact that the game has only marginally improved graphics wise. The mechanics are still pretty much the same too so in all it doesn't look like the brand new game i'd hoped it would be. The phrase "why change a winning formula?" comes to mind when seeing the game in action. EA and Blackbox have a solid game here and continue to impress with what they crush into the game overall.

The game is released on May 14th. Look out for it if you fancy checking it out. As always shopto.net offer the game at a cheap price, head on over and check it out.

-Dave