2009 is turning out to be quite a year for me gaming-wise. So far this year I’ve purchased two EA titles, something that rarely happens with me any more. Something has been going on over there at EA, you’ve probably heard about it. Over the past year they’ve been putting out ambitious titles like Mirror’s Edge, Skate, Burnout Paradise and Dead Space in an effort to get themselves known for more than the yearly Madden update. I guess they’re doing something right because two EA titles in a month is more than I’ve bought from them in the past 5 years.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t played a Tony Hawk game since THPS4 several years back. I was a huge fan of the series for 2 and 3, but somewhere in the middle of playing through the 4th game I became bored. It just seemed like the series was getting too “over-the-top” and had lost the element that I enjoyed so much in the beginning. So I moved away from skateboarding games and had pretty much forgotten about them. When I saw that EA was entering the Skateboarding arena, I’ll admit I kind of chuckled to myself. Well, after I checked out the demo for Skate 2 i realized just how wrong I had been.

Luckily I had some store credit for GameStop sitting in my wallet so I promptly went over and bought a copy for the PS3. I’ve only spent about 4 hours or so playing the game as of writing this… so please don’t mistake this for a full review. My general impression so far is that Skate 2 embodies all the things I loved about the early Tony Hawk games. The controls take a bit more skill to pull off tricks than the combo system of THPS. If you haven’t played Skate 2 (or the first game), it uses the right analog stick to pull off various ollie and flip tricks. This takes a little getting used to, but once you get it, you’ll wonder what you did without it.

The game has a similar set-up to Burnout: Paradise in that a large open world is available to you. However, you have to complete challenges to advance in the game which unlock more challenges in return. Many of these include photo sessions for Thrasher magazine, video sessions, races and other miscellaneous tasks. You’ll also meet NPC characters who will perform different services for you (at a cost) that will open up new areas for you to skate.

The game is jam-packed with great features which will make it a game people will be playing for a while. Like Burnout, the game features the ability to jump right into an online match… making it feel seamless with the single-player experience. I just hit a couple buttons and a few seconds later I was grouped up with several other players competing in challenges. I didn’t have a lot of time to try out the online, but it seemed nice and lag-free so I look forward to getting in some more online play.

EA has nailed the community features of this game with the web side of the game. At the Skate Reel site you can register and associate your web account with your PSN/Xbox Live account. this allows you to upload the recorded videos you make in the game and share them with all the other Skate 2 players out there, regardless of the platform they’re playing on. EA has obviously gone to great lengths to make this feature really smooth, I’m genuinely impressed with what they’ve pulled off here.

Anyway, check this game out… it kind of flew under my radar a bit, but it’s a great game and deserves to be played by a lot of people. It’s just a shame that EA’s Black Box Studio has been closed down and this game is their final effort. I hope the people employed there go on to do great work for other studios.