Les amateurs de jeu de skateboard n'avaient à une époque que la licence Tony Hawk vers laquelle se tourner. Activision détenait quasiment le monopole du genre mais le titre, décliné en moults volet,s commençait à s'essouffler.

Un gameplay accessible mais exigeant; Gamme de figures plus étoffée; Beauté de San Van

La marche à pied; Nouveautés discrètes

The anti-establishment sport of skateboarding-rewatch Dogtown And Z-Boys ; those guys wanted to drain your swimming pool, then take your daughter behind the middle school and get her pregnant-needed to have its anarchist edges softened in order to gain mainstream acceptance for videogame purposes.

The game's opening cinema; There's more panache, spirit, and humor in this three-minute prison-yard montage (set to "Showdown" by ELO and "Anubis" by Anubis) than there is in the entire Tony Hawk series

You wind up spending three hours trying to earn a measly 800 points in an "own-the-spot" challenge

When EA Black Box's Skate dropped in 2007 there was much talk of it being a usurper to the Tony Hawk series' reigning dominance. That particular 500 pound gorilla named "Hawk" is now safely out of the room, which leaves the coming Skate 2 – due for a January 20 release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3...

the arcadeness of Tony Hawk has lost its allure

skateboarding and youth scare you

The camera swoops over the entire market square and you see a line of tricks that would definitely put you in the top spot of the competition. You approach the first gap and reach deep into your bag of tricks and pull out a 360 Laser Flip off the stairs into a feeble grind down the hubba rail.

When I reviewed Skate late in 2007, I said it was "a testament to what this generation of gaming can really do". After the difficulty that the Tony Hawk series brought to performing amazing feats on a skateboard, Skate was a unique twist.

A near perfect balance between true skating and arcade fun.

More speed driven goals; hall-of-meat challenges; vast amount of replay value with online ranks and co-op missions; tri-pod cameras in replay editor; hippy jumps; no ridiculous additions like natas spins or an "assume the position" special move

Soundtrack large, but dated and overly obscure; bail glitches for hall-of-meat online; odd loading times online; insanely difficult goals such as games of "skate" and hand-planting a basketball net; less effects in replay editor

A refined and polished sequel to a brilliant skateboarding game.

The increased move-set; which gives you further flexibility on your board; The beautifully designed skateboarding paradise of New San Van; The brilliant 'Create-A-Spot' mode; which adds further replay value

The steep learning curve for "noobs" or the impatient; The clunky on-foot controls; The occasionally annoying camera angle

Skate 2 is a wonderful example of a videogame doing justice to an alternative culture, in this case, the underground-gone-mainstream world of skating – you know you're in for a cultural treat when the introduction and ensuing gameplay features a veritable who's who of pro skating legends, both in...

I went through that pretty quickly. That's because none of it matters. The small pitfalls and the tiny steps forward do little to hide that skate 2 is simply real skateboarding done justice in a video game – but that's all it is.

First Impressions My reaction is As the old saying goes, why fix what's not broken? Year in and year out, every sports games publisher seem to concentrate on what new features their games have to offer this time around. What if the game was already great to start with?