Skate 3 Game Review

Skate 3 builds off of the last two EA Skate games, improving and adding to the experience. Skate 3 doesn't do anything too risky, but instead it polishes up the same gameplay as before, making it even better and more fun. Skate 3 is definitely worth your money. The best thing about Skate 3 is just playing the game. It's smooth, fun, and easy to pick up. The same was true of Skate and Skate 2, and Skate 3 simply makes it even better.

The story of the game involves you starting your own skateboard company. You get to design your skater, but also this company, and you can name it whatever you want. Most skateboarding games have followed the formula of you trying to go pro, so it's nice to see something fresh.

the game still has all the same old aspects of gameplay, however, and you still get to slowly learn to be better and better at the game. The game takes place in the new town of Port Carverton, and as you build your skateboard company, you get to collect a skate team, and become a better skater yourself.

Most of this works out feeling very similar to the previous Skate games, though. You complete challenges, and just have fun skating around. You can move ramps and rails around, and you can even tear apart skateparks and rebuild them. You can take your skate company online, and there's a whole different side of the game waiting for you there. People can download your custom skateparks and videos (making your company money), and you can join other people's companies online and help them out, or just have fun skating with them.

The online part of Skate 3 is massive. You can play massive chunks of the game online, with friends, as your own skate team. You can play games that put your skate team against other skate teams - all made up of real people! For example, remember the Hall of Meat game? In Hall of Meat, you chuck yourself off of a cliff or into something dangerous, and try and get the most horrific bail possible. In previous Skate games, it was fun, and you could play with friends. Well now you can also play this as a team game, with your and your friends trying to out-injure yourselves against a team of other real players! All for the glory of your skate team. You can play all of the single player challenge modes online in either a co-op or versus fashion. Sound cool? It is!

Sharing skate parks is fun, and the skate park creator is massive. You should be able to come up with some amazing parks with it! I tinkered with it a little, but I didn't get too deep into it - I wanted to get back to playing the game. But it was very clear that the editor is bigger and better than before, and that some creative players out there are going to make some amazing parks! And as people download your parks, you make money for your company.

Skate 3 has a nice pile of featured pro skaters:

• John Rattray
• Lizard King
• Andrew Reynolds
• Rob Dyrdek
• Jason Dill
• Colin McKay
• Alex Chalmers
• Ryan Gallant
• Ray Barbee
• Mark Appleyard
• Danny Way
• Ryan Smith
• PJ Ladd
• Dennis Busenitz
• Lucas Puig
• Braydon Szafranski
• Chris Haslam
• John Cardiel
• Jerry Hsu
• Terry Kennedy
• Darren Navarrette
• Chris Cole
• Pat Duffy
• Eric Koston
• Mike Carroll
• Dan Drehobl
• Benny Fairfax
• Joey Brezinski

How's THAT for a list for pro skaters!? It's huge! Along with these pros, Jason Lee is in the game as Coach Frank (though he looks just like a scruffy Jason Lee!). He'll help you learn new tricks, and walk you through how to play. He's also very funny, which one would expect...

Skate 3 is a great game. The online team features are interesting, and offer a whole new way to have fun with the game, but it boils down to gameplay. Skate 3 is fun because PLAYING Skate 3 is fun! The controls are the same as before, only now you can set your difficulty, so brand new players, or people who find the controls tough, won't have the game ruined for them. The physics of the world, and the way that you can move stuff around and tweak things, all make the game even better.

But what makes this game stand out to me is that it is fun. It's fun to skate around, try tricks, hit up obstacles, explore and goof around. This part of the game is extremely fun, and so all of the other aspects of the game - the massive online aspect, creating your skate company, building skateparks and sharing them with friends, the mini games, EVERYTHING - it's all great! I highly recommend this game. It's easily the best skateboarding video game that's come out to date, and a lot of fun.