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An alternative take on skating to contrast with the arcadey Tony Hawk series, Thrasher was a game I ended up enjoying for brief moments. There's one thing that really makes this game stand out compared to THPS - fleeing. I grew up in a city that didn't have skate-friendly architecture or parks at all. Skating wasn't really a subculture here, really. Bikes were the big hitter. Thrasher and THPS allowed me to pretend I was part of a world I'd see on television a lot which was nice enough, but unlike THPS, Thrasher showed the risk of it. The allure of being where you shouldn't be, doing what you shouldn't do? That was interesting, and it was even more interesting that there were consequences for it.
Unfortunately the rest of the game isn't quite as good. The feel of it is comparable to GTA3, oddly enough, but the actual gameplay is quite sluggish and hard to get a grip of.
I saw the most recent review by largebagofrocks, where they wrote "It gets closer to imitating the experience of IRL street skating by putting you into a similar frame of mind that figuring to how to skate a spot asks of you" and that got me thinking of a glorious cross between Mirror's Edge and Tony Hawk.
Somebody, make that a reality. I'd buy it.
Unfortunately the rest of the game isn't quite as good. The feel of it is comparable to GTA3, oddly enough, but the actual gameplay is quite sluggish and hard to get a grip of.
I saw the most recent review by largebagofrocks, where they wrote "It gets closer to imitating the experience of IRL street skating by putting you into a similar frame of mind that figuring to how to skate a spot asks of you" and that got me thinking of a glorious cross between Mirror's Edge and Tony Hawk.
Somebody, make that a reality. I'd buy it.
I love what this is going for - a more realistic skateboarding sim that drops you in legendary skate spots (EMB, China Banks, Brooklyn Banks, LA ditches) and asks you to think about your run, the path you take, and what tricks you can attempt and pull off to max out your score before having to escape the cops. It gets closer to imitating the experience of IRL street skating by putting you into a similar frame of mind that figuring to how to skate a spot asks of you.
Unfortunately, the physics, the controls, and general feel of the gameplay lets this game down. L1 + Square + Up to nail a manual? Triangle and circle to try a frontside flip? L1 + X + Down for a bluntslide? Absolutely nonsensical. Skate sims would get much better about this starting with the Skate series, using the analogue sticks to approximate your skater's footwork, and recent games like Session and Skater XL tweak this approach to allow you to get really granular with your virtual skating in much more interesting, expressive ways. Coming back to this is really difficult now that we have those games, but this game at least has a vibe and an attitude that the newer skate indies don't really have imo. One of those 'respect more than I enjoy' type games for sure.
Unfortunately, the physics, the controls, and general feel of the gameplay lets this game down. L1 + Square + Up to nail a manual? Triangle and circle to try a frontside flip? L1 + X + Down for a bluntslide? Absolutely nonsensical. Skate sims would get much better about this starting with the Skate series, using the analogue sticks to approximate your skater's footwork, and recent games like Session and Skater XL tweak this approach to allow you to get really granular with your virtual skating in much more interesting, expressive ways. Coming back to this is really difficult now that we have those games, but this game at least has a vibe and an attitude that the newer skate indies don't really have imo. One of those 'respect more than I enjoy' type games for sure.
Skate and Destroy's biggest mistake is putting "destroy" in its name and making people think that they'll do awesome shit in this game. The truth is, this is an incredibly frustrating game. It's like that one person who'll bark and bite you for the slightest mistakes but they never actually help you on how to fix/not repeat said mistakes.
This is a skateboarding game that tries to take a more slow paced, realistic and grounded approach. You can't just accelerate to high speed at a dime, ollie higher than any white man can, and perform multiple tricks like it's nothing. You actually need to plan out your combos, be mindful of realistic-ish physics and do as much as you can before the timer runs out. This does go okay for the first 2-3 levels, because they don't ask too much from you. But then, the minimum score requirements gets higher, and the level design gets much trickier. At that point the game's inner workings are exposed for what they truly are: incredibly clunky button combinations for tricks, the wonkiest spaghetti physics code that can be so inconsistently punishing, and unnecessary ragdoll animations that will only serve to piss you off even more. I can't tell you how maddening it is for the game to not recognize your trick inputs because you're coming up too far on a slight slope, or when the half pipe you're landing on somehow makes you fall down, even when you're hitting it at the seemingly right angle.
Also, you're pretty much required to do combos without repeating the same tricks too much later on, and oh boy, even the act of doing different tricks can be so rage-inducing. You're required to push the corresponding face buttons, then you need to press the correct directional button for said trick, and finally you release the face button. This results in very annoying situations, such as being forced to change your direction because you have to press a directional button before initiating a trick, which can amount to at worst messing up your flow, and at best making you fall down because you didn't land on right angle or you hit an object that previously isn't in your path. It feels overwhelmingly clunky.
What's truly frustrating about this game is that I can see the charm of it. Most of the levels are set in urban city environments that are designed to be more like a real place rather than a skate park, meaning you won't see obvious skating routes, and you have to carve your own path in the levels. It supports the realistic feel that the game is going for. Also, the soundtrack is pretty damn good, even if there's not too many tracks here. That, combined with graphics and UI art design, makes for a very nostalgic late 90s vibe. However, it's hard to fully appreciate the qualities of this game when the inner mechanics of it is so flawed and unlikeable.
Playing this just makes want to play any other skateboarding game, there's a 70% chance that it'll be better than this, and I'll take that over the 10% chance of having fun with this game.
This is a skateboarding game that tries to take a more slow paced, realistic and grounded approach. You can't just accelerate to high speed at a dime, ollie higher than any white man can, and perform multiple tricks like it's nothing. You actually need to plan out your combos, be mindful of realistic-ish physics and do as much as you can before the timer runs out. This does go okay for the first 2-3 levels, because they don't ask too much from you. But then, the minimum score requirements gets higher, and the level design gets much trickier. At that point the game's inner workings are exposed for what they truly are: incredibly clunky button combinations for tricks, the wonkiest spaghetti physics code that can be so inconsistently punishing, and unnecessary ragdoll animations that will only serve to piss you off even more. I can't tell you how maddening it is for the game to not recognize your trick inputs because you're coming up too far on a slight slope, or when the half pipe you're landing on somehow makes you fall down, even when you're hitting it at the seemingly right angle.
Also, you're pretty much required to do combos without repeating the same tricks too much later on, and oh boy, even the act of doing different tricks can be so rage-inducing. You're required to push the corresponding face buttons, then you need to press the correct directional button for said trick, and finally you release the face button. This results in very annoying situations, such as being forced to change your direction because you have to press a directional button before initiating a trick, which can amount to at worst messing up your flow, and at best making you fall down because you didn't land on right angle or you hit an object that previously isn't in your path. It feels overwhelmingly clunky.
What's truly frustrating about this game is that I can see the charm of it. Most of the levels are set in urban city environments that are designed to be more like a real place rather than a skate park, meaning you won't see obvious skating routes, and you have to carve your own path in the levels. It supports the realistic feel that the game is going for. Also, the soundtrack is pretty damn good, even if there's not too many tracks here. That, combined with graphics and UI art design, makes for a very nostalgic late 90s vibe. However, it's hard to fully appreciate the qualities of this game when the inner mechanics of it is so flawed and unlikeable.
Playing this just makes want to play any other skateboarding game, there's a 70% chance that it'll be better than this, and I'll take that over the 10% chance of having fun with this game.
I don't think it's a good game. The gameplay is very heavy and takes time to get used to. The characters are limited, and the stages are very basic. The soundtrack is good, but that's about it.
Honestly not that fun, but philosophically sturdy and kind of necessary? Gaming as power fantasy isn't as interesting to me as gaming as hobby, and getting good at skateboarding or any hobby worth pursing is mostly monotonous and frustrating and defined by the spiritual catharsis of 100 failures preparing us for that one success. As such, this game does everything it can to bind you -- the physics are grounded, the spots are realistically un-spectacular, and the controls are fucking weird (you press L1+Square+down to do a manual...?). It'll make you less immediately happy than Tony Hawk, but you'll feel a since of accomplishment when you kickflip over a set of stairs for the first time -- and Tony Hawk never binds you, and never gives you a sense of accomplishment.
skate. before skate.
skate. antes de skate.
skate. antes de skate.