It's funny. A lot of developers have made games that compete with each other.
For example, football games. We have Madden, we have Sega's series, we have
Midway's Blitz series and in the case of the PS2 and the X-Box, there's the Gameday
and NFL Fever series, respectively. This is the case with many genres such as
baseball, basketball, hockey, racing games and even some platformers. But it's
suprising to see that hardly any developers decide to take on the Tony Hawk Pro
Skater series. Perhaps they're too afraid to take on the trick system Neversoft
has perfected, as well as the evolving game engine. Maybe they just can't compete
with the name recoginition. Konami decided to challenge this fact with Evolution
Skateboarding, a fun, but not as nearly robust skateboarding game. It brings some
good ideas aboard to the genre, but lacks the technical complexity of the THPS
series. Does this make Evolution Skateboarding a bad game? No. But it could have been
so much more if the trick system were deeper.
You've probably guessed what Evolution Skateboarding is about. Here's a hint,
it's in the title! Evolution Skateboarding pretty much follows the standard
procedure of most extreme sports games. You select a stage and go through a series
of set challenges and goals. Complete a specific number of them, and you can move
on to the next level. This is done in the Arcade mode. Lord knows why the developers
called this Arcade instead of Career, but that's a good chunk of the game. The challenges
are fairly easy to complete, in fact, you can probably complete the goals offered
in this game easier than THPS's goals. You've got three minutes to do as much
as you can, and if you haven't finished it, you'll need to start over. Three minutes
seems fair, but now many extreme sports titles offer unlimited time during play,
so here it seems a bit limiting. A cool aspect in the arcade mode are the boss stages and
events. Here, you will need to grind or hit certain objects or parts to defeat the boss.
It's never been done in previous skateboarding titles, and it does add a bit of
life to a fairly standard game.
Another mode in ES is a Tournament mode, which is pretty much championship based
events where you try to pull as many tricks as you can on a halfpipe. Oddly,
this is left out of arcade and treated as a seperate mode. I haven't played this
mode as much as the arcade mode, since it really isn't that engorssing. ES also
boasts a Challenge mode. Here, you have set challenges, such as combos, specific
tricks to pull, score challenges and more. It's a nice change of pace, but to
a point it seems redundant. Also, some of the challenges seem unbalanced or
even unachievable (such as the stages that involve rail combos). I've been able to
complete some, such as the score and combo challenges, but other stages are more
difficult than most of the objectives offered in the arcade mode. Capping off the
modes, ES features a createable player and a sticker edit mode. The edited player
actually adds a new set of challenges in the arcade mode, which is nice. The sticker
edit mode is fun, especially when it comes to plastering your board with childish
phrases and swears. Nothing like seeing a board with "BIG 'UNS" on the bottom.
The game desigin in Evolution Skateboarding means well, but I think it's biggest
fault lies in the fact that the trick system is not very complex or even modifiable,
and that the rail transfer combos are difficult to perform, since balance is hindered
during the transfer. The combo system is pretty easy to abuse. One would think
that the big points come from the air combos, but that's not true. You can abuse
the combo system in pretty much the same way it can be abused in Dave Mirra Freestyle
BMX 2. You can either pull combos by doing a manual, a quick air trick, then back into
the manual; or by grinding a rail, jumping with a quick air trick, and then getting
back on the rail with another grind. It sounds like I'm rambling, but if I can
show you how it's done, it seems oh so easy. As for the tricks themselves, there's
a good handful of them, but they aren't as plentiful as the ones found in the
THPS games, and not nearly as good. Still, it didn't really hurt the overall
experience for me. In fact, it's better than BMX XXX in terms of design and fun.
It just seems shallow when you consider the competition.
The graphics are fairly decent. Not mind-blowing, but it does the job. The stages
are well laid out and are pretty big (one of the stages is the Plant stage from
Metal Gear Solid 2). The character models are done pretty well,
but the stage textures aren't as sharp as other games I've played. As funny as
it sounds, I felt like I was skateboarding in the world of Crazy Taxi. The colors
were bright, and the textures were a tad blurry or smooth. At times, the game also
seemed to have taked on a cel-shaded look (such as the Plant stage). Konami didn't
have a concrete decision on how the art-direction should have been. The framerate
stays constant most of the time, but there were some places where it lagged. The
place that did it the most was one of the Tokyo stages, and it stared slowing down
where there were people talking. For the most part, the graphics are serviceable.
The sound consists of typical skateboarding sounds, and even more of a typical
soundtrack. While the music is licensed, I can't recall any of the acts in the
game. And it's pretty much all rock music. When will an extreme sports game embrace
some different music? The voices from some of the people in the stages are pretty
funny, such as the little girl who just shouts out obscure things.
Evolution Skateboarding kind of took me by suprise. Other critics did not think
much about this game simply because it wasn't Tony Hawk. I bought this game as
a "what-the-hell" purchase at a KB Toy store for $9.99. But I was not at all disappointed
with the purchase. Evolution Skateboarding turned out to be a pretty good game with
a few flaws. Sure, the trick system isn't expansive. And sure, it may be a little
easier. And while I would have liked the skater's turning radius to be tighter,
the controls are pretty good. It's not at all unplayable, the design is not
broken in any way, and it is fun to play. I suggest anyone looking for an alternative
to THPS to give this a chance. Of course, this is the only alternative. But
for $10, or even $20, you can't go wrong.
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