What are the reasons behind a franchise growing stale? Too long in the marketplace? Over-saturation? Complacency which grows predicability? Whether it be a film, a music group, a television show, or even a computer game, there are a myriad of reasons why a once powerful franchise can outstay its used-by-date.
With the demo release of EA’s Skate this week on for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, comes the realisation that the Tony Hawk series may have outstayed its welcome. Whilst there can be no arguing that the original Tony Hawk, released back in 1999, rejuvenate extreme sports titles for the video gaming market, lately it has become… well… boring.
The Hawk titles have always mixed the aspirations of millions of wanna’ be skaters with the ‘world is your skate park’ level design, and by and large it has delivered the goods. But with the recent releases of American Wasteland (2005), and Project 8 (2007), its started to nag in the back of many a gamer's head that we’ve been here and done that before. How many times have we hit the ‘A’/cross button to gain speed and ollie, then mashed the triangle/’Y’ button to land a grind, before finally nudging the ‘X’/square button to finsih off with a kick/heel flip?
Hence EA’s Skate has finally stepped up to the challenge of knocking Hawk off the podium for skate boarding titles, and is set to accomplish this buy stripping back the way we skate whilst at the same time increasing the difficulty of executing tricks.
For example, the simple art of the ollie is re-introduced as the basis for most tricks, and not just as a means to continue a combo of other tricks. Instead of a single button to ollie, the right analogue stick is given greater powers to define (with a down then up motion) not only the size of the ollie, but also the option of kick/heel flips and variables, whilst at the same logically introducing the nollie in a reverse manner.
In game, your typical skate park is opened up as a much larger and rewarding environment than even the most fanciful level from a Hawk game. There is more to gotten out of performing a simple gap grind over two, half metre tall concrete blocks in Skate than grinding up a drilling tower at 100kmph (one of the requirements in the oil rig level of Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland).
The old rule of ‘less = more’ has been beautifully applied in Skate, with the bonus that to accomplish less, you actually have to do more. For once, we are challenged to successfully pretend we are pro-skaters.
Certainly there are similarities between Skate and any of the Hawk games, such as the shameless and excessive promotion of shoe, skate and clothing companies, but by paring back the carnival and introducing a ‘realistic’ element, Skate looks likely to deliver to the gaming community something which we haven’t had for a long while: a skate board game with lasting and challenging game play.
Friday 24th August-2007
Dylan Y. (Fuchal)... a failed skater in real life! NextGEN Gamers
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