Street Sk8er 2

"Poor man's Tony Hawk."

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is a marvelous game. With its easy to learn controls and deep gameplay, almost anyone can enjoy it whether he/she likes skateboarding or not. While THPS revolutionized the skateboarding genre, it also spawned many ripoffs. Street Sk8er 2 is one such 'ripoff' - it is nothing more than a poor man's version of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

Street Sk8er 2 doesn't have a whole lot that separates itself from other games of the same skateboarding genre. The game features five different modes - competition (aka 'career' mode), free skate (skate without any rules), multiplayer (2-4 player version of competition mode), pool duel (multiplayer game), and create a park mode (self explanatory). All of the modes can be found in other games.

SS2's main mode is obviously the competition mode. In it, you select from one of four different fictional skaters and start the 'easy' mode. Easy mode is not a misleading title - it is not difficult at all. In easy mode, you have to skate through three 'street' courses (Washington D.C., London, and Moscow). In between each of the street competitions, you must skate in a short 'vert' course. The vert courses are used to add more time to the street courses - the more points you earn, the more of a time bonus you shall receive.

Once you complete the easy mode (it shouldn't take long), you must move on to the medium mode. In medium mode, you basically do the same thing you did in easy mode just with the addition of a couple new courses and higher score is needed to clear each course. Hard mode comes next and it's more of the same, with even higher scores needed to clear the courses. Since each mode is virtually the same thing, playing through the competition mode can be a very tiring process.

Despite the competition mode's tediousness, it is worth playing through at least once with one of the skaters. The farther you get in the mode, the more stuff you unlock. That 'stuff' includes new skaters, new courses, harder modes and new skateboards. Getting new skaters is a good thing since having only four total would be pathetic, but the characters aren't very distinguishable from each other. They all feel the same when you are playing as them, until you mess around with their attributes (you gain attributes by advancing in the competition mode). With that being said, let's just say that the fact that you can build up the skaters is a good thing - they absolutely suck until you give them better attributes. Gaining new skateboards is useless, since you won't be looking at the boards while playing.

As for the courses, they are a mixed bag. The street courses are massive and are well-designed. There are plenty of ramps, grinds, and pipes to skate on through each of the street courses and there are even a few shortcuts scattered throughout them. The street courses follow a simple formula (skate from the start to the end within the time limit, while performing tons of tricks along the way) and are definitely the better of the two types of courses.

The vert courses are decent, but they are way too small. You only get 60 seconds (sometimes 30) to skate in them, but they are so darn small so that's all the time that is needed to get a good score anyway. There are five vert courses in all, which is not a bad number for its type. However, there are only five street courses, too, which is a bad number for its type. There definitely should have been more street courses - five is simply not enough.

Create-a-park mode is a neat little addition to the game, but it is not very in-depth. You are basically given an abandoned building to turn into your own skate park, using whatever pools, ramps, and pipes you desire. There are only 23 parts to choose from, but that is understandable considering the Playstation's meager power.

Performing tricks in SS2 is not nearly as fun and user-friendly as in other games (i.e. THPS). You can choose from two types of trick controls - manual or automatic. Automatic control makes the game ridiculously easy as all you have to do is press the X button and a directional button to perform a trick, which the computer will choose automatically of course. The trick chosen depends on your speed and height, among other things.

The manual trick system is not that great - it uses the L2 and R2 shoulder buttons quite a bit, at least for simple kick tricks. Harder tricks are performed by pressing a directional button plus triangle, circle, or square. The game gives you each skater's trick list in the competition mode, so if you ever are wanting to learn what tricks a skater can do then that is where to go. When you are not performing a trick, the X button is used to ollie, circle for speed boost, square to stop skating, and triangle to grind. It's been a while since I've played the first Street Sk8er, but this game has definitely been influenced by THPS.

Perhaps the best thing about Street Sk8er 2 is its soundtrack - it features Static-X, Shootyz Groove, the Deftones, Ministry, and four other bands. Most of the tracks are great, but some just aren't made for skateboarding (like ''Push It'' by Static-X). Still, the soundtrack can be played on any normal CD player, which is a very cool bonus.

The great soundtrack is almost cancelled out by another aspect of the game's audio - the highly annoying announcer. I swear that this guy is just there to annoy the hell out of you - he is always making supposed 'witty' remarks, such as ''Y'all ready to do this?'' and ''Excuse me, there's a timer here!''. Thank god for the option to turn the nuisance off. The rest of the sound effects are pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, such as grunts and the grinding sound.

Visually, the game is average at best. There is quite a bit of clipping to be found whilst skating, and the animation is also a bit rough. Those two problems are fairly annoying, but they can be tolerable. The characters are poorly designed, but the courses (well, the street ones at least) are impressive. Sometimes, though, the design can throw you off - walls often look like ramps, which you won't be able to tell the difference between until you run right into them. The visuals definitely could have been better.

Overall, Street Sk8er 2 is an average skateboarding game most people won't even bother to play because its title does not contain the words 'Tony Hawk'. If you have the patience to play through the exact same thing over and over again, then you may like this game. However, if you are used to the THPS games then you will more than likely not enjoy SS2. I would recommend a rental of this game, nothing more. There's simply not enough fun to be found here and there is certainly nothing new and/or innovative either. Get THPS or THPS2 instead.

Final Analysis:
Graphics 5/10 - a lot clipping and poor animations, but tolerable
Sound 6/10 - nice soundtrack, but god-awful announcer holds it back
Gameplay 5/10 - tedious competition mode requires a lot of patience to unlock everything
Control 5/10 - quite average, but two different trick systems is nice
Replay Value 4/10 - most will never bother unlocking everything
Overall 5/10

The definition of average.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/20/01, Updated 10/20/01