Skate Video Game Analysis

The user interface of Skate was quite revolutionary and fresh at the time of its arrival on the scene. Before the launch of Skate 1, back in 2007, the skateboarder video game market was dominated by the Tony Hawk series of video games. These games were fun and comical, as players could rip through a variety of maps and skateboarder on nearly everything. The Skate video game series has a similar game design to that of the Tony Hawk series, however the Skate video game series was able to represent the culture behind skateboarding on a level the competition at the time never could. In this essay, I will discuss the many ways and facets the Skate video game series put a new spin on the mold that was being created or skateboard video games all while embodying the culture and the act of skateboarding.

First, the look of both games vary drastically from one to the other and I 'm not talking about graphics whatsoever. In Skate, the score display only appears when you land a trick and is located in the bottom left of the screen, taking up very little space in the frame. It also …show more content…
Having the score display fade away when not performing tricks is emphasizing a key element of the culture; that of “not really competing against anybody.” Elements of competition are always present in all sports, and certain aspects of the Skate series is competitive based, however small aspect such as the score display disappearing from the frame dislocates the importance of a points based system. In the Tony Hawk series, since the score display is always present we subconsciously associate an importance to the score simply from being subject to its presence. However the Skate series offers that slightly more realistic feel, since the gamer focuses primarily on ones “attitude of having your best run, making all your tricks” (Beal,