Pro Skate

Another week, another sub par skate game. I know, with my crappy balance and crappier knees, I'm never going to tear up a half pipe any time soon. Still, I like to pretend I could grind my way down city streets, usually living vicariously through the characters of games like this week's victim, Pro Skate. Except when I fantasised, I was never a gangly drunk apparently without a skeleton.

Pro Skate isn't really a skating game. It's more of a balance game, riding from one end of a two-dimensional track to the other without falling. The goal is to do this as quickly as possible while picking up stars for extra points and grinding along rails. All in all, there isn't much to the skating; your mode of transport just happens to be a skateboard, but it could be anything and it wouldn't make the game any less enjoyable than it already is - by which I mean, not at all.



In fact, sticking this loose-limbed relative of Forrest Gump on a bike or in a car probably would have made the game slightly better. The controls are so damn sensitive that he spins left and right with the slightest of taps, crashing in a heap of barely attached body parts. He moves like someone dressed up a crash test dummy and nailed it to a skateboard. Why the game designers thought a rag doll was a good idea, I'm not sure, but as the skaters arms flail wildly back and forth I'm left feeling rather confused.



The one thing that gets you more than anything else is the complete lack of sound. There's no theme music; there are no sound effects save for one grunt at the beginning of each level, like it pains the game every time it has to load the next track. Well, I'm sorry, Pro Skate, I didn't realise I was being such a burden on you!

It's so unnervingly quiet that I actually had to put on some music just so I would have a noise, any noise - anything but the awful silence that filled the room while I played. That's never something I've had to do before. I got through Platform Robot 2 without sound, and that's unquestionably the worst game in human existence! But Pro Skate's eerie quiet left me feeling as if something was trying suck my brain out through my eye sockets.



The game takes place in a construction yard for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom. Most skating games take place in, well, skate parks. Some take place on city streets. Not many are set on building sites for the simple reason that it would be retarded to skate in a bloody building site. Regardless, you skate one, trying not to fall over (and failing, repeatedly) while collecting stars. The stars, it seems can only be gathered if you touch them with your skateboard; I went right through plenty in the course of playing with no result. That's really all there is to it. Unlike other games of this type, Pro Skate doesn't feature any tricks. You can hold onto the board by pressing the "C" key if you want to flip in the air, but why bother? You'll probably just land on your head and you get more points for just finishing the level quickly.

I found that the best strategy was just to move slowly across the screen, not attempting to do anything other than reach the end. It got me to the later levels but it was, naturally, about as exciting as Sundays with your grandmother.



Lacking good gameplay, good controls and good graphics, as well as any sounds at all (which I don't normally comment on, but which in this case just bugged me) Pro Skate is an ironic title, if ever I heard one. There's no real skating, and none of it happens in a professional environment. Every level is the same bland grey with a generic city silhouette in the background. There's no enjoyment to be gleamed from winning, and losing is far too easy. Considering there are already some really great skating sims out there, Pro Skate had to deliver far more than a slapdash balancing game to garner anything other than apathy.

Street Skater

There was a time, right around the release of the very first Tony Hawk game, when skateboarding experienced something of a renaissance. For a few years it wasn't solely the preferred means of transport for disaffected teens who couldn't drive yet; everybody got into skater culture, myself included.

Unfortunately, I never did get to grips with skateboarding, partly because I lived in an area with no flat land and partly because I have the balance of a Wibble Wobble. Still, I got a kick out of the games and living vicariously through the biggest names in the sport.

Still, as much as I continue to enjoy those skating games, my passion for all things skateboard-related has slowly slipped away and returned to a state of mild interest. I'd like to think maybe that's why I didn't enjoy Street Skater - but I think it has more to do with it sucking ass.

Street Skater is a remarkably simple Flash skating sim that nevertheless proves quite frustrating and ultimately not worth your time.



You begin by choosing your skater. I decided to go with the first option, Jessy, who's either the most feminine man or the most masculine woman you'll ever meet in a Flash game. Surely such gender confusion is hardly going to help my chances of beating this game?



This doesn't help. Can you really get away with a name like that?



The levels on Street Skater are, as one would expect, very long, straight streets (or more accurately, footpaths.) You skate down the street until you reach the finish line, using the arrow keys to move and the A - H keys to perform grinds, kickflips and methods. The game is 2D, though it likes to pretend it's 3D because you can move your skater in and out of the background. Because you're moving from left to right this makes gauging jumps a little difficult, which inevitably leads to copious bailing from your unfortunate skater.



Trying to do anything other than a kickflip becomes a real chore. If you're not in the right place at the start of a rail you won't be able to skate on it, nor can you just jump onto it as you skate past (you know, like you could in real life.) You're supposed to jump onto steps and walls in order to gain enough height to pull off the really impressive aerial tricks, but that's no easier.



Bail five times and an ambulance will come to finally put you out of your misery. Somehow I doubt my score of -490 is going to be good enough for the high score table.



I decided to try again, this time with Scott, the most cheerful punk in the world. I was starting to get the hang of it at this point and finally managed to land a few grinds. Every time you load a level in Street Skater the obstacles are randomly generated, so you never get the same level twice. This certainly increases replay value, but it also means players can't learn from their mistakes. Instead of knowing where a rail or hole is and being able to prepare for it, you're always going into a level blind. It's like a brain surgeon trying to do a double bypass - you might have a good idea how to do it, but you can't be totally sure. Unless you're a brain surgeon who also performs heart operations, in which case you're probably too busy to play this game anyway.

What was I writing about?



Right, Street Skater. Personally, I doubt even skaters would get much enjoyment out of this game, especially as there are far superior titles on the Web such as Street Sesh, as well as the aforementioned Tony Hawk series. Unless you have the patience to get to grips with this game, I'd suggest looking elsewhere. Hell, maybe you could even try going outside, grabbing a skateboard... then falling on your ass and coming back inside, because really, you should know better.