EA dates SKATE

By Robert Purchese Published 3 August, 2007

360 in Sept, PS3 in Oct.

EA has turned its cap around and stamped an official release date on its answer to Tony Hawk, SKATE.

First to hit the ramp will be the Xbox 360 version on 14th September, followed a few weeks later by the PS3 copy on 5th October.

Those of you on Live will also be able to enjoy at demo on 15th August.

Developer EA Black Box is making no secret of its comparison to established genre-leader Tony Hawk, but has made several additions to make its game stand out.

First are the skating "Flickit" controls. Left stick dictates which way you lean when you're in motion, and the right is your board control - face buttons start and stop you. Pushing the right stick around makes you shift your weight around on the board, so snapping it down and then up should potentially make you Ollie, for example.

The other biggie is the video footage, which you can capture at any time, edit, and then share.

Your skating will also have an effect on the world around, landing you headlines in newspapers and unlocking more prestigious events as you go along.

Up and coming UK boarder Lucien Clarke told us at a SKATE event that it was "more real than Tony Hawk". He might have been laying it on a bit thick, although we couldn't help but agree.

Head over to our first impressions of SKATE for a more in-depth dissection. Or pop into our SKATE gallery to see the new screenshots.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • menage #1 5 years ago

    Yeah. A bit of bitch for PS owners to get every game a month later. except for GTA of course, now that's waiting:p

    August is going to be demo heaven.

  • SomaticSense #2 5 years ago

    Good idea to release a demo.

    I used to love the Tony Hawk games, but was all skateboarded out after the first Underground game and couldn't be arsed from then on in. I doubt I was the only one either.

    So if the demo proves decent enough, and provides a fresh enough feel with the more realistic take, they could find themselves in with a lot of extra sales from us former Hawk players.
    Edited by 1 at 03/08/07 @ 14:03

  • menage #3 5 years ago

    I stopped playing Hawk when they made it more "free roaming". No more score trashing sessions and stupid storymodes. They became crap!

  • richardiox #4 5 years ago

    Yeah what's the deal with the almost standardised 1-3 month delay in PS3 titles oveer their 360 counterparts? Are publishers choosing the dates to reflect the release schedules of each console to maximise sales on that platform? Or is it that the PS3 versions are taking all that extra development time to get running as well as (or in many cases, not as well as) the 360 version?

  • mattigan #5 5 years ago

    Looking forward to this one.

  • Darren #6 5 years ago

    I was really disappointed with Tony Hawk's Project 8 on the 360, particularly the woeful framerate. I think I'll be giving the sequel a miss this year and checking out skate. instead.

  • Monkey_Puncher #7 5 years ago

    Can't say I'm interested in this, just doesn't look very exciting. It's nice that they're trying to do something a bit different to Tony hawks, but the lack of realism and stupidness is what makes Tony Hawks so fun. Take away that and you've got a pretty dull looking game...like Skate

  • Moz #8 5 years ago

    There are so many games coming to PS3 in sept that the chances are i wont pick this up til November any way!

  • bengray66 #9 5 years ago

    @ richardiox

    They take longer because the PS3 is a harder console to work with, so they need more time, and it fucks everyone else's fun up --> see GTA
    Edited by 1 at 03/08/07 @ 14:20

  • mattigan #10 5 years ago

    I thought THP8 was good, but the more I played it, the longer it took to load on startup, it got to the point where I had to watch nearly that whole of that slow mo intro sequence before it would let me hit A to skip to the Start Game menu WTF was all that about!!!

    Or was I the only one this happened to?

  • DrDamn #11 5 years ago

    They wouldn't put in a delay on purpose - there are vast marketing costs to consider too. Initial shots of this ages ago looked quite distinct and interesting from a graphical viewpoint - these latest shots all look a bit vanilla.

  • rmg #12 5 years ago

    OH YEA BABY

  • afghan_jones #13 5 years ago

    In other news:

    Britney dates Justin.

  • malloc #14 5 years ago

    Is that a working title? Otherwise, lamest name for a computer game ever.