Joystiq feet-on: Skate It
'Skate' bored? EA teases Skate 2 gameplay twist

According to the skaters in the clips, five years have passed in the gameworld -- Skate's fictional city of San Vanelona -- and large corporations have spearheaded a big-time crackdown on skating. They talk of harsher punishment than mere tickets and how obstacles have been put in place near rails and other prime trick spots to discourage skaters. Still, the second clip shows a skater and his board perched defiantly atop a concrete block with a "No Skateboarding" sign affixed to it. So, skateboarding is a crime after all -- at least in Skate 2 -- and it looks like you'll be sticking it to the man (in this case, big business) a la Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.
Joystiq hands-on: Skate It
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?
See first screens of Skate It on Wii and DS

- We really wanted to use the above image again. It's like Tim Curry is clawing his way out of the page!
- We genuinely thought you'd be interested to see some screenshots of the Wii and DS versions of EA's well-received Skate.
EA wants you to "Skate It" on Wii and DS
Blackwood explains that the team behind the well-received original game "are working co-operatively with partner studios to make Skate It," with DS development duties handled by UK developer Exient. Why bother bringing Skate to the Wii? Blackwood is glad you asked: "It's all about bringing that authentic Skate feeling to the Wii remote and stylus, or and for the full on immersive types, the Wii Balance Board." And here we thought a port of Sega's Top Skater would be the first one to let us do an alley-oop in the living room.
IGN posts about Skate on Wii, then pulls story [Updated]
What's interesting is that both the mysterious Batman project and skate are EA titles. So ... did IGN get some exclusive info and then let the bat out of the bag too early, deleting them moments before uncle EA could wrest his whippin' belt free from his dungarees? We're betting yes, but we'll almost certainly never know.
[Update: If you're interested, here's the cached article, thanks to tipster Robber Tom.]
Brace yourself: More Skate, Burnout, Need for Speed confirmed
Gibeau also said that after a disappointing sales year, Need for Speed would be returning to the touchstones that made it a hit before, and adding open-world racing and a new "highway battle mode" -- does it count as stealing if you do it from your own company? It's a great time to be alive for people who love EA games, but hate being surprised.
Skate outsells Tony Hawk 'nearly' 2 to 1
Although Skate had a one-month head start in both US and Europe, both titles were out long enough to be well-stocked for the crucial holiday season. While we're glad to have a quality competitor in the long-dominated skateboarding genre, we can only foresee a constant stream of bickering between the EA and Tony Hawk publisher Activision Blizzard at the Annual Giant Game Publishers Valentine's Day Dance.
Today in Joystiq: January 28, 2008
News
Stringer: PS3 is 'out of the woods'
New games this week: Turok edition
1080 degrees now boarding Virtual Console
Super Smash Bros. Brawl video dump
Rock Band Weekly: Coheed and Cambria, Rush and Smashing Pumpkins
ION Game Conference to address social networking on consoles, PC
Patapon demo includes exclusive weapon
Campaigner calls Wii exercise in schools 'another gimmick'
This Wednesday: Rez, Chessmaster come to XBLA
'Guitar Hero: On Tour' trademarked, possible name for DS version
Circuit City posts new cobalt blue DS model ... removes soon after
World of Goo oozes onto PC and Wii in '08
Kingdom Under Fire II combines RTS, MMO, cornrows
Rock Band microphone in the wild for $50, Wii
Screenshots: Resistance 2
PC game sales only 14 % of industry in 2007
Turok developers remove team-kill achievement with launch-day patch
Halo 3 MacFarlane figures packaged, pretty, coming soon
Team Fortress 2 updated for PC, 'Well' map goes CTF
The Force Unleashed for Wii gets exclusive content
Nintendo shares drop 10%, has 'little to do with company itself'
Rumors & Speculation
Rumor: 120 - 160 GB PS3 with rumble in the pipeline
Rumor: Comprehensive MGS collection coming to PS2
Culture & Community
Ricardo Torres promoted to GameSpot EIC
Jack Thompson: Mass Effect controversy 'ridiculous'
Pro wrestler starts gaming column
How old is old enough to play games?
See Ronald McDonald teach DDR
New site chronicles co-op gaming
SKATE will have no downloadable content
In an interview with EGM, executive producer Scott Blackwood said that they are "not planning any new content for Skate 1 ... We didn't want to go back and ask [people] for more money to get more shoes and shirts." Blackwood added,"that's not how we wanted to enter this market."
Blackwood also lamented on the dearth of female characters in the game, noting that "we are going to make it up to [the players]. When we do it -- and we will -- it's going to be done very well." Given that DLC is reportedly not an option for the first title, look for female skaters -- and the possibility of paying a premium for more in-game shoes and shirts -- in the inevitable sequel, SKATE 2.
Today's most casual video: EA's Skate bail into sit down
So, to take things down a few notches, we decided to post a video worthy of the chilled out mood we're in now. Namely this Skate video that features a player bailing right into a kicked back sit down. It's not quite as laid back as the sit down in the video at the bottom of this page, but we couldn't figure out how to embed that one without our brains exploding, so you sort of get two videos tonight for the low price of one.
Sit back, and enjoy.
Today's most relaxing trick: Skate 'laid back crash'
Sometimes ragdoll physics can actually prove more natural. Sure, most crashes don't send you floating and flipping effortless through the wind, regardless of the laws of gravity, but those crashes aren't nearly as fun.Take this video, for instance. In reality, this guy would've likely fallen headfirst and spend hours trying to find his brain on the ground -- not because it fell far, but can you imagine how hard it is to find something when you lack cognitive function? Thankfully, we don't have to worry about such philosophical queries; instead, enjoy the video embedded after the break.
Continue reading Today's most relaxing trick: Skate 'laid back crash'
Tony Hawk Proving Ground demo now Live
You've seen the comparison videos, now you can get some hands-on time with both. Here's the big question: Which one will you be getting? Will you welcome a new succinctly-titled overlord, or will you keep Tony in his throne?
Skate demo is now available on Xbox Live, PS3 demo coming soon

Your thirty minutes in heaven takes place in the community center skate park in the suburbs and it's fully equipped to experience a good chunk of what's possible in Skate. After a brief tutorial of the flick-it controls, you'll be let loose on the park, free to do whatever you please.
What really makes this demo special is the ability to save and upload a movie using the saved films feature so please, feel free to share your creations with the rest of the class. As for PlayStation 3 owners, your demo will be arriving sometime soon as folks at EA have said that it's been completed, sent out and is now in Sony's hands.
EA's Skate demo delayed "a few days"
Originally due out on August 15th, EA's Scott Blackwood has announced that the Xbox 360 demo for Skate has been hit with a short delay. How short? In an official forum post, Blackwood says, "We're not quite sure yet ... hopefully not more than a week."We spoke with EA about the cause for this delay and their spokesperson told us, "We are trying something completely new for an Xbox Marketplace demo in allowing people to play the game and upload footage they take in-game to our Skate website. The skate.reel video upload functionality is much more technically complex than a standard offline demo, and the number of moving parts have resulted in undue & hard-to-predict delays." Having recently played the demo area (and well beyond) and scoped out the included features, we assure you that it'll be worth the wait.
The good news is that this delay has no bearing whatsoever on the final game, which will still be shipping out on September 12th for the Xbox 360 and September 24th for the PlayStation 3.
























