The social and community features
What you may find disappointing - if you are expecting a substantially improved and engrossing single player experience - is the career mode which has obviously been designed this year with co-op play in mind. Indeed, Skate 3 is clearly geared totally toward online play and community interaction. In career mode you're often tasked with completing objectives that require more than one skater where a friend can drop in and help you out. Playing these objectives with unpredictable A.I. just doesn't have the same appeal as hooking up together and having a laugh trying to rack up points by chaining together tricks or battling against each other tooth and nail.You can practically play through most of your career online, and if you do so it's far more entertaining than playing it solo. You can buddy up to achieve high scores and take on certain objectives together. Where Skate 3 really excels, however, is with the new team-based modes such as 'Domination', where you compete with your opponents to dominate certain areas in Port Caverton. These modes really add a sense of camaraderie and competitiveness that no skating game has managed to achieve in the past.
There's a huge range of activities that you can enjoy online, such as "Own the Lot," a chaotic and funny game mode where teams compete in certain areas to complete a variety of tricks in the fastest possible time. There's also the return of some of the old favourites such as the popular Hall of Meat, where you can throw your skaters around and injure them in all sorts of humorous ways. It showcases the physics engine spectacularly and seeing your character full down a flight of stairs knocking a member of the public over in the process, and being able to play it co-operatively or competitively with a team is a lot of fun.
Continued overleaf...
