At its unveiling, Skate It was touted "not built from the ground up for Wii" by its dev team -- an odd way of stating the obvious fact that they are simply building on the core gameplay of Skate, while destroying the gameworld. Wait ... what?
Some, EA included, may say it's a stylistic decision to "clear out" the city of San Vanelona (also the setting for Skate) by means of natural disaster; to make it a skater's paradise devoid of pesky pedestrians. We say it looks like it's been done for purely technical reasons; i.e., getting the same open world up-and-running on Wii. Still, the focus should be, and is on the skatin', and not unnecessary hardware hatin'.
"We weren't popping ollies with excitement over the game's looks." |
While we weren't popping ollies with excitement over the game's looks -- which aren't even up to snuff with, say, the later Tony Hawk's Pro Skater installments on PS2 -- the simple, no-Nunchuk motion control had us smitten. Within only a couple (not even a few) minutes of getting our hands on the Wiimote, we were tooling around the demo area with surprising ease and accuracy. Ollies, nollies and manuals were pulled off with simple flicks and tilts of the Wiimote, and we even managed to land from an ollie into a manual while moving on our first try -- something that couldn't be said about, well, any other skateboarding game.
There is, of course, Wii Balance Board support pegged for the final version of the game, but it was not available for feet-on play. As it was demo'd by an EA staffer, however, we saw pretty much what you'd expect: shifting your balance to the left and right initiates turns, while back and forward tilting launches manuals.
EA claims that it went through several possible control schemes before settling on the present one, and we're glad the others got kicked to the curb. As it stands, Skate It's control is one of the best gameplay implementations of the Wiimote yet.
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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I'm a Nintendo fanboy (really) and I can tell you that this game will suck.
It's not the Wii fault. It's lazy developers like EA. Just look the graphics in LostWind. It's a 37MB game and looks a lot better than this EA shit.
What do you people think about this industry? I have yet to meet anyone in this industry that is genuinely lazy.
If you could get your obviously slightly narrow minded brain to comprehend all teh intricacies involved in game development you might actually start to understand. Just calling somebody out as lazy without any insight, actual knowledge, or understanding of teh subject matter is primary school playground bully tactics.Grow some balls, educate yourself, and be a real man.
Also, don't compare a basic, fixed camera view, cartoony platformer to an open world physics driven game, it makes you loosk silly. Sure Lost Winds has a nice art 'style' but style has nothing to do with laziness and is purely subjective. Some people may hate the look of Lost Winds. Technically though, Lost Winds hardly pushes the hardware as much as Skate It.
Maybe, just maybe it is not the lazy developers, maybe just maybe the crappy looking Wii games look crappy because they are running on overclocked GAMECUBE hardware.
I have not seen 1 Wii game that looks better than the average PS2 game and none have come close to late generation PS2 games like SotC and GoW2.
Fernando and other Wii lovers, maybe just maybe your disappointment and anger on the graphics (I thought graphics don't matter) should be directed at Nintendo for putting out such horribly gimped and crippled hardware and charging you $250 for it.
The power is there, but I still blame it on Ninty for not encouraging devs to use that power.
The problem is that White Sox would have to have actually PLAYED and/or SEEN a Wii game like Mario Galaxy in action in order to realize that it goes far beyond even the best looking PS2 games. But he's an idiot fanboy, hence the misinformed statements.
*sigh* I'm beginning to wonder why I pick this site over Kotaku...
I am just about to leave work after a long day. I meant no ill will towards you. I was just having a little fun thats all.
I have seen Mario Galaxy, and yes it does look good, but not better than SotC, GT4, or GoW2. At least in my opinion.
I would. I did, and I'd do it again. And I don't think he's ignorant, either. He's just pointed out that he's seen Mario Galaxy, so we know he's got all the facts needed in order to form an accurate opinion; he simply chooses not to, opting instead to make statements to prop up his system of choice without letting facts get in the way. It's called fanboyism.
Consider, for instance, the growing role of physics in gameplay. Especially for sports games like the 'skate' series, physics are increasingly important. How does the headwind affect the football's arc? How does your velocity and inertia when running (or skating or whatever) affect your attempts to stop on a dime? Physics is also growing in importance in other genres as well, such as FPSs (where people expect the environments to be interactive). The broadway chip, while easy to code for, leaves much to be desired in the power department, and game devs know this going in.
Or consider the growing trend toward 'open world' settings. What used to be reserved for western role playing games and the GTA series has expanded into racing games, skating games, platformers--its pretty much permeated the whole gaming world. But without adequate memory to store textures and models, or without adequate processing power to thread load new 'zones' without the player becoming aware of it, the whole process is meaningless.
All that to say, don't mistake those of us disappointed with the wii's technical prowess as pure graphics whores. Some of us simply know that it comes with a gameplay price as well.
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What he said is both relevant and factual. The Wiimote IS limited in what it can do. The Wii itself is even MORE limited in what it can do.
Does that $250 you spent to play WiiSports plus Mario this and that still look good to you?
I'm kicking all 3 systems and loving each one - probably because, unlike most Joystiqers, my viewpoint isn't limited.
At this point, you're just getting annoying.
The Gameboy was limited, but that didn't stop Pokemon.
The GBA was limited, but that didn't stop Golden Sun.
The DS was limited, but that didn't stop Final Fantasy.
Your comment was limited, but that didn't stop your trolling.
...They hatin'
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I hope skate doesn't pull a Tony hawk and do a sequel every year.
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Control reports are solid, that's good. I haven't gotten into a skating game since Pro Skater 3, but this could be worth a rent
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(npcs in skating games have always been kinda pointless, if not annoying... but if they've taken out the npcs I hope they can polish up the gameworld a little from these shots)
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Nintendo needs to bring back the damn quality seal from the 90's so crap like this can stop happening...
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EA has been VERY lazy with the Wii, and their comments early on pretty much prove that. They made the arguement that they regretted not focusing more on the Wii this generation, and suddenly we got unfinished crap like SSX Blur and My Sims. What can be done with the Wii and what 3rd party developers ARE doing with it are worlds apart. It's their own fault their games aren't selling, not the 'quality' of the Nintendo titles.
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