It's the game everyone's talking about! Just try and navigate TikTok without being inundated with Street Skater 2 clips.

This is such a weird, scruffy little project. Micro Cabin are a studio you won't have heard of unless you swim in the very, very deep end. Most prolific during the MSX era, they appear have toughed out the nineties as a porting studio, and their biggest projects are things like the 3DO versions of Myst and Bust-A-Move, and the Saturn version of Tunnel B1. Co-developers, Atelier Double, are a company I'd never heard of, and they mainly seem to be a support studio, with credits on Umihara Kawase, Boku no Natsuyasumi and Game Boy spin-offs of games like Quest 64 and Lufia. Though they're not credited on the box, they appear to be the driving force behind Street Skater, with a host of c-tier skateboarding and snowboarding games under their belt. These are the people behind Zap! Snowboarding Trix, Snowboard Racer 2 and Disney Sports Skateboarding. A weird transition, and one that appears to have killed the studio, as they closed in 2004.

Anyway. I have a soft spot for Street Skater 2. Japan never really seemed to catch on to skateboarding games, and there isn't a lot of space in the culture for the sport to thrive over there. The unwarranted success of the Cool Boarders series was responsible for many crimes. Street Skater takes much more of an arcade-style approach than THPS, with you keeping an eye on the time as you attempt to rack up as many points as you can between checkpoints. It has its own internal logic behind trick execution and point distribution, and it doesn't feel very technical or satisfying, but there's still fun here, albeit quite superficial.

The trick system in Street Skater 2 doesn't bare much resemblance to THPS or any of the games it inspired. You're more rewarded for performing simple tricks across different stretches of the course than complex ones in a single spot. This results in amusing moments like pulling of a fingerflip 900 and hearing the Crazy Taxi-style commentator bluntly stating "your family should disown you". The game defaults to an "Automatic" trick system, and there's little rhyme or reason to what you end up pulling off in this mode. You launch off a ramp and the game determines whatever trick it thinks you ought to pull off, given your speed. It doesn't matter if you land mid-trick, even if you're not even on your skateboard at the time. The only way to wipe out is by bumping into a wall at speed. You'll land everything else. There's also a "manual" mode, which appears to have been patched in to satisfy THPS fans, but it's not very well incorporated, and just makes score-chasing more frustrating.

The soundtrack is quite insufferable, featuring Deftones, Static-X and multiple tracks from "Shootyz Groove". There's also a Del The Funky Homosapien song here, and given that the game allows you to pick a track before starting each level, I relied on it many times in my playthrough.

Street Skater 2 isn't very good, and you shouldn't put a lot of effort into picking up a copy. It is, however, frequently very cheap, and it's enjoyable enough. If you're diving into sub-£5 second-hand PS1 games, you're hoping for a small mercy like a Street Skater 2. It's very dumb and forgettable, but it retains a bit of charm, and serves as one of the more playable 90s Japanese extreme sports games. It over in an hour, and you may be glad to find something so modestly-designed and quirky to sink those minutes into. I just can't bring myself to talk too negatively about it.

I think Sion should have never been reworked. Imagine all these shonen protatgonists running around getting one-shot by a guy who looks like Klungo from Banjo Tooie. It would have been the funniest shit in the world.

I am going to confess something that will forever change our relationship: I love League of Losers. I started playing in 2013 and it was the most exciting multiplayer game I had ever played. I played a shit ton of games as Shen and Skarner and with friends it was electric. Eventually I went to college and, living in the corn fields of Iowa, the internet conmection on these Iowa campuses was so rotten that playing League online was simply not a possibility.

So, I spent a few years Not playing League, working full-time jobs that meant that after a brutal 9 hour shift I was NOT even interested in getting screamed at by a 16 year old Udyr in my chat. I briefly tried going back to the game in 2021, but this was the time Akshan was released and I found his kit despicable. Which is nothing new: every new champion is released hideously broken and able to solo games because that is how you sell them. But that overloaded kit? Give me a break.

But, you know what, you can't stop me from playing Renekton, so I have been playing it the last month and I have a couple thoughts about the game that made me reflect on it. My first thing is: How do new people get into League? It seems impossible. If you show even the slightest competency in a win you will instantly get paired against Team Smurf who will make you go 0/15/4 as fucking Kennen or something. If I was brand new and I saw Yasuo owning my team while my team unearthed ancient slurs to tell me to kms, I would say, "Ah, this game is for fucking morons." The fact Riot is so incapable or disinterested in figuring out the smurf problem or actually banning people who abuse chat is insane. It has been a problem since the day I joined the game and has not even moved an inch.

Riot's general ineptitude is it's own essay entirely. They are a poorly run Boys Club that fails at even the simplest of tasks when it comes to operating one of the largest games of all time, and half their financial model has to be based around smurfs buying Yasuo skins on new accounts because it seems impossible to me that new people successfully are retained. It's like the Burger King that is ALWAYS hiring because the pay is shit and customers are fucking morons.

The amount of rage in this game is kind of astonishing. For the record, I think shit talking opponents is fine. They are your enemy! Shit talking teammates is insane to me. No one's play has ever improved because they got told to hang themself in the most grammatically alien way every written. I had someone rage at me in ARAM once! The fucking casual mode! What is wrong with this playerbase?

So, my recommendation for any new player is: mute EVERYONE. Do not assume that something someone types in chat will be worthwhile. It won't be. Pings can do enough. Watch good players online play, and they will regularly communicate their thought process during objectives and team fights, and a lot of those thought processes can be applied to your own game. Do NOT pay for a fucking course for the love of fucking God. The game is about map awareness it is not rocket science save your money. You should also avoid bot lane, as bot lane in this game is the most useless role I have ever seen in a Moba.

Historically, the ADC was great at pushing lanes and snagging kills, but now EVERY champion is hyper lethal and mobile, so the fucking Ezreal dinking around bot lane is just a relic of the past. He will never help nor hinder your game; he is just a sitting duck fr. Your Zed or Lee Sin or K'sante are the ones who will carry you to the finish line due to their ability to explode enemies and not die doing it. Supports are also the whiniest, most pendatic fucking crybabies in the history of gaming. If you, as a level 1 Vayne, don't engage in the most brainded fight in history, they WILL rage and probably AFK. Botlane needs a severe rework because it is such a useless and not fun lane.

So, after ALL this crying, how can I possibly like League? The thing is that sometimes it all works. Sometimes it comes together and you get the kind of excitement and thrilling plays that define great multiplayer games. Sometimes you'll lane against bloated characters like Yasuo and Yone as Renekton and just blow them the fuck up with your empowered W. 200 years of game design vs. a Pissed Off Crocodile. I wish there more beast characters being made, as every new champion is designed to appeal to Main Character Syndrome in ways we haven't yet seen. So just shutting those Main Characters down with really simple characters like Ren and Garen? M'wah, perfecto.

Other complaints: Voice actors are terrible anime dub actors. Mute them instantly. Nasus and Renekton sound awesome though. Unmute them. Whoever designed Akshan should be sent to a prison camp, and I'm not just saying that because my Akshan mid the other day AFKd after dying once since it prevented him from being the Main Character. Riot is so bad at making a game that they are still making it 10 years later.

Play it if you dare.