43. My Addictions: Skate 2

My Priory article went up at Nidzumi, it talked about my addiction to Marble Blast Ultra. I thought I would continue this by putting up a series of articles about other games that I have been addicted to.

Today’s game is Skate 2.

I was a fan of Skate 1, I played the single player but did not really venture onto the online world. When the Skate 2 demo came on Live, I played it to death, logging up a high number of play-through’s. I went into town in January of last year with no real plan of action. Luckily my obligatory nip into Game turned out to be on the release day of Skate 2. I bought it on the spot, grabbed a subway sandwich – cheese steak, jalapeños, lettuce, red onion, southwest sauce on toasted hearty Italian –  and some Frisps from PoundLand, then jumped on the first bus home.

I was instantly hooked. The real addiction came into place when I took it online, and convinced a few friends to pick it up. The online modes in Skate 2 are near perfect, with something there for every occasion (Cliché, I know).

My particular addiction lay in the free-skate challenges, completing them all with friends (multiple times), sharing the frustration and the anger. One particular memory that makes me chuckle is the time we were up until 3am, trying to manual down some stupid little narrow pipe. We were creasing ourselves because we kept spinning around and around crashing into each other, my girlfriend telling me to keep my voice down, but I didn’t care, as it was just so much fun.

The other MAJOR addiction is the ranked modes, especially Own The Spot, where I got into the top 200 in the world. I’m now around 250th with 60,000 experience and an average of 19. The best thing about all these self-congratulatory stats? I had great fun doing it. Seriously, playing Skate is a right laugh. Especially when you get in with a couple of mates. The mates in question were usually Billy Goodgun (Mr. Sam Giddings) and his bro Tommy Topgun (an absolute legend). We managed to get into games together by sitting in chat and searching for a game at the same time.

It had, and still has, that just-one-more-go element that keeps you up until dawn. Beating your best scores, pulling off that trick you’ve been trying to do for months, one-upping your mate, all of these things combined make Skate 2 one of my top 5 favourite games of all time. In fact, I’m off to play it now as I’ve still not got that Airwalk 360° frontflip dialled.

Note. Go read the previously mentioned Billy/Sam/Giddings/Goodgun’s Priory post here, on the fabled days we had on Gears of Inconsistency (read: Gears of War).

Are you an Active Skater?

Got this lovely little achievement earlier today, well I did not get it first try. There’s a little glitch with this achievement if you have downloaded any of the new content from the marketplace. When I completed the last challenge there was no little exciting bleep bloop from my TV. Luckily my partner in Skate related crime had been through the same thing, all you have to do is delete the content off your HD then reboot the game and compete one challenge and you should be greeted with 20 hard, yet enjoyably earned gamer points. I can honestly say that this has been one of my favourite achievements on the Xbox so far. I only have 40 more points to get on Skate 2 to get the full 1250, I’m not sure if i’m going to get them though, I hate S.K.A.T.E challenges.

Oh almost forgot to say, Bungie have announced the marketplace release date of the Mythic maps, 9th of April is the glory day for all you excited little people.