Exclusive first look at Skate Nation

By Nigel Wood, UK
for www.touchgen.com

Published: September 3, 2009

Exclusive first look at Skate Nation thumbnail

The fourth and final game we took for a test drive at Gameloft’s london HQ today was this sandbox skating title… Ever since Tony Hawk hit consoles back in ‘99, skateboarding games have been big business. On the current consoles today it’s spawned countless sequels, as well as similar titles from other developers such as Skate. So now Gameloft have entered the fray with Skate Nation for iPhone and iPod Touch. Dubbed as a skate anywhere 3D sandbox game, the majorty of the time you can do just that. I quickly jumped into free play mode and was happily grinding, performing flips and aerials with ease. Pulling off more advanced tricks though is a little more difficult.

Controls include two buttons, A and B, as well as the now standard Gameloft virtual analogue stick. Pushing forward on the stick commands the rider to mount his board and push off, and pulling back will cause him to slow. Left and right steers him in that direction. Just like Tony Hawk, holding down the A button and releasing when on an obsticle will make the rider flip up, allowing you to get air and do tricks. B lets you grind in rails. Depending on what buttons you press in conjection with joystick direction will allow you to pull off various trick combos. A list of which is available from the menu, should you forget.

Visually it looked pretty good, featuring what looked to be a version of the Gang$tar 3D engine. The areas were a good size and featured plenty of obstacles to ride on. The game is obviously very early on, as there were some clipping issues as well as bugs that caused your character to fall through the environment. At one stage after falling from his board, my rider looked to be flying through the sky like superman.

The game does not feature any licensed riders, instead opting for urban/punk style stereotypes. It looks to have plenty of customisation available to the player though, with various boards and outfits for your character that will be unlockable from the career mode.

There have been some Skating games on the AppStore for while now, but this one looks promising and could be the best answer to Tony Hawk on Apple’s handhelds.

Unfortunately we don’t have any screenshots of the game in action, but we’ll update this story with those as soon as we get them.

Review disclosure: Any games reviewed on this page may have been provided to us by the developer for the purposes of this review. Note: the resulting review score is never impeded by this fact, all opinions are that of the TouchGen reviewer and not the developer. This is in keeping with our O.A.T.S oath. Read more about O.A.T.S here

5 Comments on "Exclusive first look at Skate Nation"

Dan on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 2:19 am

any tilt control? be cool to grind and ollie with tilt.

Nigel Wood, UK on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 9:45 am

Yeah grinding is tilt based, sorry I forgot to mention that detail.

Dan on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 6:20 pm

Very cool.

sf49lu on Fri, 4th Sep 2009 8:22 pm

This game looks like it will be awesome. There were rumors b4 that Tony Hawk would be coming out for the ipod but this will be an adequate replacement…for the time being.

Pat on Mon, 28th Sep 2009 3:55 am

Check out Mike V Do or Die for a real skate game!

http://www.mikevdoordie.com

Will be coming out in November.

Exclusive first look at Skate Nation

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