This game is dope. I only played it for about 30 mins as I drank my coffee this morning, but I definitely had a real "oh shit" moment when I realized that you can shift the the position of your front foot on the board to do a "high" ollie. That made me kinda get the whole thing right then an there.
Out of boredom I read a few reviews people posted online on google or whatever and a lot of people are complaining that there's no story, or challenges, or tasks, or all that other shit. Or that the menus are too bare bones. Or that there's not enough gear to customize the skaters. Or that the world isn't "alive" because there's no cars or pedestrians or other bullshit.
Who cares about all of that?
I'm so fucking glad I don't need to listen to Reda's stupid commentary all the time.
I'm glad I don't have to race down a stupid ditch. Or do ridiculous hall of meat challenges.
I'm glad I don't get hit by a car when I try a trick or some stupid idiotic NPC is in the way of a ledge I want to get to.
Tony Hawk and Skate have all the big name skaters and brands. Who cares, it's not important. These guys got what they could for gear, and I like the 4 skaters in this game a lot. Tiago and Westgate are 2 of my favorites of all time, and I hope they get paid for this. And those other 2 guys are pretty good too.
This game reminds me of Minecraft, y'know, the most popular video game (maybe) of all time, ever heard of it? There's no menu, no tutorial, the game just starts and doesn't tell you what to do. And it's super fun. Use your fucking brain, what a concept.
The game I just finished before I got this was GTA V, and you know what?, that game sucks. It cost $140 million to make all those "cool" menus. And to make every single one of the 600+ vehicles customizable. The story is boring. The voice acting is pretty good, I'll give it that, but it's not really important to the game play. And it takes forever to play the fucking thing. If I never play a game that takes me 30+ hours to play through again, I'll be happy.
Granted, just before that, I played Horizon Zero Dawn for 80+ hours and loved every minute of it, but that's because the game was fun.
Skater XL is fun. "Here's a skateboard, use your brain and figure it out". That's cool.
I haven't bought a game on launch day since maybe Final Fantasy VII, the original playstation version, but I knew I had to get this right away.
And I hope the developers get a lot of people buying this game. To make anything independent of big bullshit companies these days is difficult, and I gotta say, these guys must love skateboarding and must be pretty fucking smart to make a video game, so, yeah, sure I'll give them $40, no problem.
I have a feeling they'll add more in time, but even if they don't, fine. Maybe they'll all move onto bigger and better things after, and good for them.
Great independent game, this is what skating is about, DIY, fucking love it.