Rating:

RENT

The Skate franchise hasn’t been able to top their first offering until now. Skate 3 is an improvement over Skate 2 which was irritating, had camera issues, and unpleasant looking female avatars. I recall having my character get stuck in a wall and just spin around in Skate 2.

This time around Skate 3 went the distance and put in a decent character generator. You can select a playable female avatar. She can be customized with several hairstyles and hair colors. You can pick from facial skin tones as well as the facial shapes and sizes. Additionally you may select from a batch of easy presets. It is great to be able to finally make a character that you can identify with. She can be any type of character. You can make her fem and girly, or tomboyish. You can even make a copy of yourself. It gives you more of a reason to stick with your character and the game. When you play a fantasy sports game like Skate 3 you might be thinking about how you could never do these tricks in real life. Having a female avatar makes it much better to imagine yourself flying around, getting big air while skating.

You can pick from many tattoos. They have tribal, animal and team tattoos. They aren’t great but it is an improvement anyway. It doesn’t seem to let you get more than one tattoo per area. If you get a chest piece it might not let you go and put tattoos on the arms. You have to take some time to set up tattooing on your character because at times they get covered up by the clothing and you’ll have to start again. You’ll want to make sure that you can actually see the art you have put on her before you finalize your character.

You’ll be able to customize the clothing with a team logo. you can pick from shirts pants, jackets and shoes. The set up of character creation in this game reminded me a little of the one in Saints Row 2. The only problem with that is, Saints Row 2 came out two years ago.

There are actually quite a few problems with Skate 3 including being dated. The graphics aren’t that sharp. It doesn’t look as good as it should for a game that came out in summer of 2010. An outdoor game like this should have outstanding scenery. The gardens and yards around the game have a huge potential to be full graphics. When you ride down hill in a neighborhood, you should be able to see rolling hills in front of you. Houses and rooftops should be able to be seen in the distance the way you do in a racing game.

It isn’ really an open-world game. You can’t just take your deck and skate where ever you want. At least they got rid of those oppressive guys that were around busting your characters in Skate 2. They really took away from the flow of skating as a sport. In the jam competitions you have to do specific tricks by doing jumps off the specific objects. It is a grind over and over if you don’t get it. But it works a heck of a lot better than Skate 2 did.

The tutorial NPC was very annoying. His irritable voice made me skip it right away. He didn’t seem to be the right type of trainer for a relaxed casual sport like skating. It was easier to just look up the commands for each trick. I like the way that a flick of the controller sticks makes the avatar perform the tricks. It feels natural to do it that way. If you have played any of the Tiger Woods Golf games the control os similar to that.

There are two ways to pass a trick. One way to win is to “own” a challenge by passing a checkpoint, or you can “kill” it by getting extra points and pulling it off very well.  If you do a good job you’ll be able to gloat over it with instant rewind mode. It makes a video of your character until you wipe out.

Skate 3 has online features All of the challenges in the offline mode can be played online. They can be played in teams of three on three, clans, and teams. But the online modes have long load times, frame rate blips, lag, and dropped connection. Despite the flaws this is a fun game. You might not have the patience to work all the way through it. You can have some fun making runs. If you like a skate board game then this one might be fun for a while. Skaters go up and down my street all day long, I’d love to be able to do that, online I don’t get the bruises they do. I’d give Skate 3 a Rent. Which I did, from Gamefly.

Why those three? Well the video below touts a few reasons: Simpler gameplay created by making a gameflow that effectively reduces the number of plays you have to choose from. Games become quicker because you’re spending less time in menus selecting plays, and the game itself is deeper due to its online play and new animation system.

To get a look at the first in-game footage from the umpteenth Madden game (which does, admittedly, look pretty nice) as well as a little more reasoning behind the three tenets, watch the video below, which premiered on GameTrailers late last night.

Major League Gaming is coming to the Anaheim Convention Center this weekend from November 6-8. The world’s top pros, our GamerBeauties, and many spectators will be watching and playing over the busy three days.

Admission to the events is $20 for all three days and fans can interact with “Play-a-Pro” matches, watch matches and be there for live broadcasts. I highly recommend going and cheering on GamerBeauties as well!

We’ll be documenting their progress through the competition and would love to talk to other women competing. Let me know if your team will be there and we’ll schedule an interview.

Here is the full schedule for the competition which features Halo 3, Gears of War, Call of Duty 4, Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 and World of Warcraft.

AMAZING PRO MATCHES START ON FRIDAY NIGHT AND GO ALL WEEKEND LONG!!
Highlights include:
* # 3 Ranked Team-Instinct-Friday 11/6 at 5:30 pm PT
* Dallas Champions-Triggers Down-Friday 11/6 at 6:45 pm
* The Dallas sweetheart story-Carbon-Friday 11/6at 10:30 pm
* 2008 National Champions-Str8 Rippin- Friday 11/6 at 10:30 pm
* Call of Duty and Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 Championships-Friday 11/6
* World of Warcraft Championship-all weekend long

EA SPORTS CHALLENGE SERIES
Highlights include:
* Madden Challenge-Saturday and Sunday 11/7 and 11/8
* NBA Live-first place finisher takes $1,000; 2nd place takes
$500-Saturday 11/7
* Fight Night Round 4- first place finisher takes $1,000; 2nd
place takes $500-Sunday 11/8

FOOD, SWAG, PLAY-A-PRO, AUTOGRAPH SIGNINGS AND MORE
* Ball Park Friday Morning Tailgate-Friday 11/6 10:30 am – 1:30 pm
* Str8 Rippin play-a-pros, autograph/photo sessions, and expo
scrims at the Dr Pepper booth Friday and Saturday
* Team Instinct autograph and photo session at the Old Spice booth
on Saturday 11/7 at 6:15 pm
* Customize your own t-shirts at the Stride booth
* Be an MLG Legend and hang with our broadcast personalities at
the BIC Comfort 3 Advance Booth
* Win Best Buy gift cards if you can prove your Madden skills on
Saturday and Sunday at the Best Buy booth

CHEER THE BEST AMATEURS IN THE WORLD AND PUT YOUR OWN SKILLS TO THE
TEST!
* See over 1600 of the best amateurs in the country try to make it
into the pro bracket and get noticed by the pros
* FFA and Wingman competitions at the GameBattles Arcade-

MLG LIVE BROADCASTS-WATCH HISTORY BEING MADE-LIVE!
* Pre-game show-Friday 11/6 at 4:30 pm PT
* Friday Night Kick Off-Friday 11/6 at 5:30 pm
* ESPN Saturday Night-Saturday 11/7 at 5:00 pm
* Call of Duty 4 Championship-Saturday 11/7 at 8 pm
* MLG Championship Sunday-Sunday 11/8 at 3 pm

FIFA 10 lost it’s reign as the top spot in the UK Game Sales charts for last week. But it didn’t lose it to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, or Borderlands, no it lost to Pro Evolution Soccer 2010. Those brits do love their soccer!

Forza Motorsport 3 entered the countdown at 2 and WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 entered at 5. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves dropped from 2 to 6 and all Nintendo titles on the chart went down but are still there.

There are many different companies in the top 20 this week, but Nintendo pulls out the top publisher with 4 older games.

EA Sports Active

EA Sports Active knows that by now you have completed the 30 day workout, maybe even a couple of times and wants to up the ante for getting you involved before EA Sports Active More Workouts launches. They are announcing the EA Sports Active 5K Challenge.

The site will have community leaders who will choose a run in their local community between October 17 and November 15. They even have a trainer that will help everyone get prepped for the big run.

Once you sign up, they will match you with a community leader in your area. To sign up, go to easportsactive5kchallenge.eventbrite.com/.

If you are interested in being a leader check out all the information here.

At the EA press conference today in GamesCom, Peter Moore put on the shorts and teamed up with two-time Olympic gold figure skating medalist, Katarina Vitt. Together, they showed the audience the expansion for EA Sports Active.

To date, EA Sports Active has sold 1.8 million units. EA continues to support the franchise with 35 more workouts coming in November. The new title is EA Sports Active More Workouts. At the convention Peter Moore ended up doing the exercises while Katarina Vitt watched.

Look for more details as it gets closer to November.

UPDATE: Here the trailer for EA Sports Active More Workouts:

More than 460 duelists showed up at Gen Con, ready to try their best to win the top spot and be crowned the 70th Shonen Jump Champion. Fili Luna, from Arlington, TX, outplayed every other competitor to claim this title and qualify for the 2010 National Championship.

He went head-to-head against Matt Hoey from Kenosha, WI. for the title. They both worked hard to get to this stage, spending the past 2 days dueling other players. Both were prepared with their decks and set for a grueling, intense match. In the end, Fili Luna won. Both received an impressive list of prizes that includes a 32 GB media player, subscriptions to Shonen Jump, and Luna won a paid trip to the National Championship.

In addition to these two, the top 16 finalists from the tournament, along with the top eight from the Sunday Regional, qualify to participate in the National Championship.

Need for Speed

EA just sent over the new Need for Speed teaser that features the top drivers explaining how they worked with the dev team at Slightly Mad Studios. The hope is to make Shift more realistic than ever before.

If you are a big fan of Need for Speed series, you’ll have to check out the NFS Youtube home page takeover on Saturday, August 1. They’ll be taking over the home page to show new exclusive video, four full length trailers, new car reveals, four new drivers and any other surprising news they can throw at you.