Demo Impressions

[StrabMawr]

I fluckin love it...hardcore mode all the way..no going back, the university area is fairly dull, but no matter,more time to play with the object dropper...a thing of joy. No more lugging things around
Skate school park with rails dropped FTW...
Vert seems to have been improved, but that could just be down to hardcore mode, speed/pumping is hard to maintain unless you're smooth...
Hall of meat BAH ....how the fluck are you supposed to get to the vending machine off that tower....BAH!!!
great demo of what promises to be a great game....thanks BB

[Roccityroller]

just found that if you go through skate.school you can stay there...

loving hcm...def learning curve... feels like i'm relearning everything

[StrabMawr]

once you restart just teleport there and ignore the sign up..

[PyR0MaNiAc225]

I fluckin love it...hardcore mode all the way..no going back, the university area is fairly dull, but no matter,more time to play with the object dropper...a thing of joy. No more lugging things around
Skate school park with rails dropped FTW...
Vert seems to have been improved, but that could just be down to hardcore mode, speed/pumping is hard to maintain unless you're smooth...
Hall of meat BAH ....how the fluck are you supposed to get to the vending machine off that tower....BAH!!!
great demo of what promises to be a great game....thanks BB

Spread Eagle. You can fly, literally. Or at least soar. Then just hope your hand bumps into them or something.

[PS3 Skater]

fucking love this demo, better than I thought.
- hardcore mode ftw
- dropping into vert ramps is a nice little feature (press triangle when stood on the copin incase you didnt know)
- physics have been improved
- looks more realistic
-things are smoother
- just wow!

[OMGLOOL]

is the demo on ps3 yet..? my niece and nephew are watching a movie so i cant check yet. i love reading all the stuff about the demo

[PS3 Skater]

yeah its on PS3, its absolutley amazing, dude just tell your niece and nephew there is something important you need to do lol

[OMGLOOL]

lol yeah i quickly found it and its downloading, its taking ages though i dont know why..

[Bud Muhnquai]

Just got 15 minutes on the demo, have to head out to rehearse soon so couldn't get long - basically, I think this is the best skate has ever been. Hardcore mode is just amazing.

More impressions to follow once I've had some real time with it.

[StrabMawr]

Putting loads of objects into an area hits the frame rate BIG TIME

[TheIronSheep]

demo is amazing..

darkslides on hardcore mode are bad ass

[quetonto1]

timer ?

[Synyster X13X]

about the drop in if you hold Y then you'll stand there and drop in when you let go and if you press down while just standing there he'll pick the board back. also loving hardcore mode duh

[jest118]

I'm digging this shit big time. If I can find a quality flv converter I might edit some clips together. ;D

[ell595]

It took me a good 2 hours to get all the tricks back in HCM. And now that I can skate properly it's got ten times better. At first it felt really sluggish but now i'm used to it it's fine. Can't wait to wake up in the morning so i can play some more.

I'll hopefully be making a video this weekend if reel doesn't die.

[IanJ]

Putting loads of objects into an area hits the frame rate BIG TIME

I noticed that too.

while the demo area is a little bland it is a very nice area, with lots of promise just beyond our grasp. HC is defiantly a must I haven't gone to any onf the ofthers no need. I do kinda like the trick analyzer but the manual meter is useless being you've never had to adjust weight in the game. I really don't like the floating still even in hc and you can still get max height too easily (my preference). The biggest thing I do love about it is the stance has been fixed and is way smoother when stepping into nollie, you actually step instead of slide (s2). But all in all I can't wai to get the full game.

[lennong]

so i woke up before work this morning at 6am, downloaded the demo, napped until it was done, played for only maybe half hour and was really happy! ya the area they give is pretty bland but i really dont mind! more to look forward in the full game tonight = beer, break in new pipe, skate 3 demo! got tomorrow off! i didnt check out the skate school so thats plan 1.

side thought: i was trying just a kickflip back tail on a ledge and kept landing beside it at first.. good feeling having to change things up haha..

[LENNON]

so i woke up before work this morning at 6am, downloaded the demo, napped until it was done, played for only maybe half hour and was really happy! ya the area they give is pretty bland but i really dont mind! more to look forward in the full game tonight = beer, break in new pipe, skate 3 demo! got tomorrow off! i didnt check out the skate school so thats plan 1.

side thought: i was trying just a kickflip back tail on a ledge and kept landing beside it at first.. good feeling having to change things up haha..

why the hell do i have 2 accounts.. oh well ahha

[Dusky]

Yo guys how do you do a backflip? Cause I can't do it anymore. Even on easy mode. And I used to backflip/frontflip over everything in skate 2.

[Mourning Becomes Electra]

Hardcore is like rebooting the learning process all over again. You really have to work for grinds and the more difficult tricks have to be super popped. It feels sluggish compared to the default but I'll be sticking with this mode from here on.

[Dusky]

I really think EA could have done a better job with the demo. It really kinda sucks. The demo area is boring as shit. That's the main thing actually.

[schnavolda]

some spots, especially close to the demo area but outside of the static are so huge, they just don't look like fun. mega mega huge banks and stairs and stuff, it's the area known from the hesh vs fresh trailer. who wants to skate that stuff?

[StrabMawr]

Yeah I have to say as soon as I heard there was "shark jumping" I thought that PC would be a more Hawk inspired area rather than the Old San Van...and sadly it seems so, huge long rails and stairsets masssive banks and drops and a lot of speed induced curvy bits...let's not mention the crewship and that quarry.....the areas around seem to be all set up for speed and big tricks....all in all a massive dissapointment so far...
and WTF no crail slides or rock'n'roll mechanics and the frame rate is appalling in camera mode, or with the HOM turned on and with a lot of Objects in playarea...

[quetonto1]

instead of complaining about spots and what not

just think about making your own spots,

make it as real as you want

just wait

[Corrine]

instead of complaining about spots and what not

just think about making your own spots,

make it as real as you want

just wait

^this.

I think we can sacrafice Carveton to the wolves, if it means perpetuating the series so we get a Skate 4 then so be it. Us hardcore fans of the Skate series have the CAP and hardcore mode to fufill our virtual skateboarding needs.

Leave the big banks and the massive stairs to the populus who were unable or unwilling to pay through the nose for THR. The Skate commuity is strong and vibrant, we shall become underground, trading parks through word of mouth, sharing trick tips and only making the community stronger.

Skate 3 can 'grow the beard' if we let it.

[LENNON]

i dunno if this has already been mentioned, sorry if it has, but FLUCKIN deerman of the dark woods is in this game! he's got a balaclava and "BA KU backpatch and all! NIIICE maybe my baku clip inspired it! i recall it being on cuz's blog ages ago.. ahha

oh i hope they let us wear that balaclava. BA KU video alll day

[igl00sRpeople2]

^this.

I think we can sacrafice carveton to the wolves, if it means perpetuating the series so we get a skate 4 then so be it. Us hardcore fans of the skate series have the cap and hardcore mode to fufill our virtual skateboarding needs.

Leave the big banks and the massive stairs to the populus who were unable or unwilling to pay through the nose for thr. The skate commuity is strong and vibrant, we shall become underground, trading parks through word of mouth, sharing trick tips and only making the community stronger.

Skate 3 can 'grow the beard' if we let it.

yes!

[schnavolda]

instead of complaining about spots and what not

just think about making your own spots,

make it as real as you want

just wait

true, c-a-p brings us all the options we want and need, but we can still talk about what we don't like. i mean the whole city is there to skate in but i read a post at the kid's table that summed it up pretty well. the university district resembles a real, modern university which is open spaced to help the students not too feel boxed in.

it's the same with s2. cougar mountain was a fluckin waste of space. i can openly say that. the city still got enough sick spots.

[ske]

Some things are definitely bugging me a bit...

- Still the same stale animations
- Transition skating hasn't improved at all

I also think I got my hopes up too much with the talk of catching flips mid-animation... shame it's only a couple of preset tricks (shove underflip, fs shove late flip), a bit of THPS dejavu there. I was hoping for something like what you got in the old Dave Mirra games where you could combine tricks as you liked and the animations would mix and match.

No grind suction is a good idea, but I think I'd enjoy it more if there was SOME left from the outside of ledges. I could probably practice my way out of that though

Not gonna comment on the area, CAP is hopefully gonna make that irrelevant anyway.

At least we're getting a new game, I wish they'd start thinking about a core overhaul for S4 though... the flaws in the OG model get more annoying every time.

[Jakeblueisballin]

Skate 3? Goooood.
Hardcore mode? Amazing.
Demo? Decent.


Guys. You guys think PC is unrealistic but that's just the university. They said the university was going to be big and shit. But it actually looks like a university. Which is good.

[tehwoot]

im enjoying this so far, i dont mind some of the big areas mostly due to the fact that sometimes i enjoy playing Tony Hawkish and unrealistic. Physics are much better than before, ramps seem to work like they are supposed to also. Excited for a full range of drop in items come release.

[jest118]

Leave the big banks and the massive stairs to the populus who were unable or unwilling to pay through the nose for THR. The Skate commuity is strong and vibrant, we shall become underground, trading parks through word of mouth, sharing trick tips and only making the community stronger.

I like this idea. We become a secret society. FreeSkatesons if you will.

[Amp Game]

One trouser leg rolled up on this one - New world order

Fluckit society

[thesignguy]

^this.

I think we can sacrafice Carveton to the wolves, if it means perpetuating the series so we get a Skate 4 then so be it. Us hardcore fans of the Skate series have the CAP and hardcore mode to fufill our virtual skateboarding needs.

Leave the big banks and the massive stairs to the populus who were unable or unwilling to pay through the nose for THR. The Skate commuity is strong and vibrant, we shall become underground, trading parks through word of mouth, sharing trick tips and only making the community stronger.

Skate 3 can 'grow the beard' if we let it.

Can i get that in a tattoo?

[pawnluvguitarist]

someone to a really really low fs shuv lateflip, like so low you have to go off a ledge,

watch it in slomo, best animation i've seen yet...

[Bud Muhnquai]

OK, this post might turn out to be quite long, but stick with me here. I'm not only going to talk about my impressions of the demo, but also speculate on what this will mean for the rest of the game.

Graphically, the demo wowed me. The graphics are not a huge improvement over Skate 3 in terms of detail, but the scale and weight of everything feels more accurate - not only does the player character feel more solid to move around, but the environment feels more solid and in scale. Buildings are BIG, and in the demo, they actually feel it. The space in between the ledges and walkways of the campus feel much more realistic and lend themselves to exploration. If this scale is carried over into the full game, as well as the branching areas that shoot off of the main area, I can see more flowing lines making it into videos - rather than collections of single-hit tricks. Maybe good, maybe bad, but will encourage more line play.

It took me a little while to get used to the bolder colours - the washed out look of Skate was a real draw for me. Looking around the campus, I noticed that the colours were much brighter and more vibrant and, with everything else that was going on, it actually felt nicer to be there. This colour improvement and the scale make the area feel a lot less oppressive than Skate 2 occasionally did. For example, Old Town and the Stacks often felt too crammed together and the buildings didn't feel the right size. If there's an area similar to the stacks in PC, then that feeling will certainly have been removed.

Animations are, obviously, greatly improved. The smoothness of pulling a grind transition (and the lack of effort it takes) is so satisfying, combined with the smoothed out tricks in and out of a grind, have ramped up the realism, especially with Hardcore more on. Landing a darkslide, or any grind, on HC makes me feel like I'm actually achieving something, as well as enjoying it more.

OK, so at this point, I pretty much have to say more about HC mode. It's RIGHT. It feels RIGHT. It LOOKS RIGHT. Every trick you pull off, be it flatland, off a ramp, a pipe, a rail... the extra weight feels SO right, it makes you wonder why it wasn't always that way. And looking at it from a commercial point, you can understand why - this game is for three audiences: 1. Casual gamers that want a skating game, because they can no longer expect a THPS game to provide them a solid skating experience. 2. Gamers like myself, that want a solid skating experience and have skated in their lives, but no longer skate for whatever reason. Gamers who want the chance to live a little vicariously and do it through the most realistic game available. 3. Gamers like the Fluckit community who have gone beyond the standard gaming community, creating their own virtual facsimile of the real world of skating - forming teams, brands and an out-of-game community that consistently proves to be more accepting, welcoming and innovative than communities of other games, and therefore need the most accurate way to present it - Skate 3 really, finally, delivers that, with the whole team element.

HC mode opens up the possibilities of videos with the ability to create some of the most subtle, nuanced tricks and smooth flowing lines that were you to look across the room at an S3/HC video, you'd not notice it was a game until you got really close to the screen.

It looks as though the CAS has been ramped up and refined - I'm hoping the presets in the demo are representative what we'll be able to make in game, as none of the characters look like NPCs - they look like CAS skaters, to me. Whilst I can see the whole side of the argument against CAS tweaking ("You're not playing with Barbies, its a skate game, go play with dolls if you want to dress up" - LAME), people should be able to make an accurate representation of themself if they so choose. Or be able to make the most ridiculous joke skater than can imagine. For a game that pivots on the ability to create video, making the person within that video as personal as possible is vital.

In terms of the audio, the dynamic soundtrack stuff works well - even though the music gets repetitive at times, because it is more fluidly handled, it doesn't grate as much as it could have done. I really don't care too much for most of the songs on the soundtrack, but I can imagine myself taking longer to get sick of the dynamic stuff. The skating sounds also sound better - probably due to the scale of the environment - the sounds in previous games seemed more contained, even in the open areas. Now, they sound clear and accurate.

I could go on for ages about the object dropper and the implications it has for the full game, but I won't. I'll let the created skateparks I upload do the talking on that one. Simply put - this makes the possibilities for spots endless. JOY.

OK, so there's my input for now - I've not even glitched out yet so there's a lot of area for me to explore today when I get a chance. No doubt, I'll pop back here with more to say soon.

[Dusky]

Why are you ripping on buildings packed together so hard? I guess you have never been to europe before. I really liked old town and the stacks. I liked the smaller, more packed together spots. I find it really lame that everything is so big, wide and open now. I find just that unrealistic.

[Antwan]

Dissapointed with no Create a Skater didnt expect the timer either with all the features they were adverting.. gawd
really wanted to fuck with push styles let down but the games so smooth I cant hate
looks like mad flow shit close spots to get fast low and tech all at once.. its goin down son.

[Bud Muhnquai]

I guess you have never been to europe before.

Apart from having lived all of my 32 years on this planet in England, visiting France, Spain, Malta, the Netherlands... no. I've never been to Europe.

I like the space. I like the scale. I like having the room to move around and to place objects into - I'm sure there will be areas that don't feel like this... they'll get it right - the balance of areas, I'm sure.

[Dusky]

Lol. Well that was a mistake obviously.

But what I don't like about the university district, as we have seen it so far, is that everything is so huge. Huge banks, huge hubbas, huge rails, huge legdes, etc, etc. It doesn't feel realistic to me, as I have never seen anything like it in real life. And because everything is so far apart from each other, there isn't much to skate in between (except for flip tricks), so I guess you won't be finding me a lot at PCU.

Then again, I think I will be spending most of the time at Creat a Park.