Anyone wanting to start with Skate-series, I think Skate 2 is the best in the series despite 3 having some QoL-improvements. Mostly because the city works better as in 3 you kinda always end up in the same place because the map is a hill for the most part. Also three focused a bit too much on the hall of meat-part, instead of being a skate sim (hardcore mode in 3 was a welcome addition though).
I hope skate. will be great, but the inclusion of parkour-mechanics in the pre-alpha videos doesn't quite give me the confidence and the game being f2p, it's probably gonna be loaded with different currencies and other unwelcome additions. But I hope they'll make a great city and nail the actual skateboarding part. If you want to be part of the playtests, you can register here:
https://www.ea.com/games/skate/insider-playtest-registration?isLocalized=true
If you want a skate game in the mean while, I recommend
Session Skate sim, it's available pretty much on every platform. It has been in development for a long time, NACON became the publisher (for better or worse) for the 1.0 / non-Early access version. Game has a story mode, multiple different cities/maps/spots, film/edit mode, you can add stuff with object dropper to make new spots etc. You have a lot of control on how the game's physics or controls work, so you can really fine tune how the game plays.
Best part of Session is that it has legendary real-life spots like Brooklyn banks, Love park, Hubba Hideout, EMB, Pier 7, Courthouse / Blubbas, Pyramid Ledges, so you can recreate your favorite lines (and there even historic challenges to reward you for them). And the game being a skate sim, you can do pretty authentic stuff in the game.
Unfortunately Crea-ture has kinda focused on not so interesting things after Nacon becoming the publisher / v1.0 instead of getting rid of the jank. Last few DLC maps haven't been that great, transition skating is still really janky/broken, no grabs, many bugs still etc. But hopefully the next updates improve on that and the next map should be great, so looking forward to that! I've put hundreds of hours to the game from the alpha, to beta, to EA to release and it's still the best skate sim out there.
There's also Skater XL, which is mechanically closer to Skate and aimed more for casual play, but unfortunately the developers haven't really put time in improving the game after the release, so you'll need to mess with mods to get the most out of the game.
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