Front Page Preview http://toucharcade.com/2009/11/21/skater-nation-hands-on-preview-with-video/ http://www.touchgen.net/exclusive-first-look-at-skate-nation 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. Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
damn cool. how come nobody ever heard of this site before? When did they get all these Gameloft exclusives?
I hope its more of a EA Skate type game than Tony Hawk, can't wait to see how it will come out though. [hqyoutube]HzHuQS0Olk8[/hqyoutube]
Yea, being a skater in real life I simple refuse to play and Tony Hawk games haha. Its a disgrace to the sport. I've been only playing Skate and Skate 2. Anyways, what would be really sick with this game is if they made the skateboarding physics like Touchgrind, where there are no set flip tricks, you have to preform them yourself with two fingers. Doubt it would be possible though, there isnt a big enough screen to do that and see whats going on. So as of now, I just hope this game is more focused on street skating than triple-backflip-900-coffin grab vert skating. Edit: just read the information in the OP and realized that it is sort of like Tony Hawk with the A+B button. Only thing that concerns me now is how many tricks there are. If B is for grinding, that most likely means A is for tricks. We are just going to have to wait and see.
WTF Gameloft!! What is this, like the 100th game announcement this week? Are you trying to further bankrupt the nation?!? "Gameloft have no limit on what it consume. Gameloft still hungry!!" End rant (i'll probably be getting this BTW. Jeez, what a hypocrite)
Hmmph, and not one of them is going to be polished. They have to focus on one game, and polish it, it's very disappointing that they release games that feel incomplete.
THPS lost its touch after 3. ah, i remember when the THPS 2 demo disk came out, me and my friends played it so much that it disintegrated.... lol and do you mean "A" for ollie?
All of which seem to be incredible, quite frankly. Just because they come under the umbrella of one name, it certainly does not mean only one team is at work on all of them.
Polished? Funny,i foind gameloft games to be one those that had the most polished! Give me one FPS that had more polished than ModernCombat to prove your point.
Haha do you hate gameloft or something? All your posts are against them. I know you feel they should spend more time on one app and polish them as long as possible, but they are an industry, and coming out with a lot is certainly the way to get more $$$. However, I do feel that their recent games have been very well polished. But I understand where you're coming from.
No, I just want them to focus on ONE project, and get it right. MC was very, very impressive, but it left loads more to expect. It's constructive criticism. Look at ngmoco.
Gameloft has thousands of employees. More people on a single project does not mean it'll be better. There's a limit to how much return you get by putting more people on a project. arn
Gameloft as of late is the only one causing excitement for me, yes i'm also hyped with ngmoco's game but that will take a long time and gameloft fills that void and besides a single unfocused game from gameloft is much much better than 95% focused game on the appstore ( e.g nex)! There are gems in the appstore like realracing,rolando 2,the way of the samurai but they are few and far between! Honestly, i also have a love-hate thing with gameloft but i still ended up buying all their games and not regret my purchased, i bought nex and instantly have a buyer's remorse lol!