Skater Nation, a new skateboarding game reminiscent of the Tony Hawk series of games, has been released by Gameloft and is now available from the app store. As the first full-on skateboarding game of its kind for the iDevice, Skater Nation has the dubious distinction of being the game to set the standards for what a skateboarding game should be.
Due to our understanding of gravity and its effects on the human body, we never really engaged in the activity during our youth. However, Gameloft’s offering has given us a safe way to satisfy our curiosity and get a taste of the excitement without tasting the pavement at the same time. Skater Nation places you in an open-world environment chock full of ramps, rails, halfpipes, and other such objects typically used by skaters in their quest to pull off ridiculous tricks while maintaining their ability to walk upright. There are 10 different locations in Sandifornia to explore, from skate parks to industrial areas to beaches, each with terrific scenery and plenty of room to roam. You can play as one of 8 different skaters, all but two of which are unlocked at the start. Each skater is ranked on various attributes, such as Jump Height, Speed, Spin/Turn, Rail, and more, allowing you to choose the skater best suited for the course or mission.
Once you select your character, you’ll need to choose your deck, truck, and wheel set. There are ten of each, but only three of each are unlocked initially. You’ll have to unlock the rest through the course of play. When you finish at the shop, you’re ready to ride. In Career mode, you’ll be required to compete against AI riders, rack up points, collect items, pull off tricks, complete missions, and perform other tasks. All of this is accomplished with a simple control scheme. There is a virtual pad for moving your skater, and A/B buttons that control jumping, grinding, and performing the more than 30 available tricks. There is an explanation page that shows you the button sequence for each trick, from manuals and ollies to kick-flips and backside 180s. Grinding requires you to use the accelerometer to maintain your proper balance, indicated by a sliding scale with an arrow that must remain in the green section. Not into competition? No problem. There is a Free Ride mode that just allows you to hit up the different locations and pull off tricks to your heart’s content.
The graphics are pretty decent, similar to other open-world type games like Gang$tar. The characters looks are pretty wild, from the skater clothes to the abundance of ink. It would have been cool to add character customizations, given the ability to customize all aspects of your board itself, but sadly there is none. The soundtrack is pretty standard skater-punk fare, fitting for the game. Typically, Gameloft allows access to your own music library, which would have been great in a game like this, but again, this feature is noticeably absent. The controls are sort of hit or miss. They seem to work really well at times, but don’t quite cut it at other times. It often takes several seconds to get our skater moving, despite holding the up arrow. The multiuse A/B buttons also seem a little clunky while pulling double duty of jumping/grinding and selecting a specific trick. Adding a couple more buttons or using a swipe-the-button-in-a-specific-direction technique, like in FIFA 10, could possibly help to clear this up.
Replay value is pretty good, with a lot of content, a bunch of unlockables, and the Free Ride option bringing us back for more. Skater Nation utilizes Gameloft Live!, naturally, for tracking the 20 available trophies, but no leaderboard for top scores. Gameloft does include a very nice replay system, which captures the previous 3 or 4 minutes of action. You can then save your coolest tricks or combos and upload them directly to YouTube. Skater Nation is $6.99 in the app store. Though missing a few features and utilizing a less-than-desirable control scheme, Skater Nation has still sparked our interest and earns its 4-Dimple score.
Skater Nation gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating:
