EA Flips Skate 2 Out to Stores

By Geoff Duncan Published January 23, 2009

Mega video game developer and publisher Electronic Arts has pushed the latest edition of its Skate boarding franchise, Skate 2, for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 out to retailers, adding a plethora of new tricks and competition to keep fans riveted. And fans had better be dedicated, because while EA is promoting the title as pushing limits and innovating the skateboarding game genre, getting through the games challenges requires precision movies—a whole lot of them.

“Skate 2 is the perfect next chapter for the Skate franchise,” said executive producer Scott Blackwood, in a statement. “We expanded and deepened our original ideas and incorporated feedback straight from our passionate fans. With all new features, more challenges and a rich world, the game continues to celebrate skateboarding.”

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Skate 2 includes a new Thrasher Hall of Meat mode that glorifies stupendous bails and street-rash-making wipeouts—points are assigned by the seriousness of the crash, including broken bones. Players can now move objects around in courses to create their own boarding environments…and then share those spots with other Skate 2 players around the world. Skate 2 also doubles the number of tricks available to players—including one-foots, inverts, finger flips, hippy-jumps, footplants, and more—along with a deeper character creator, an improved reel maker for sharing boarding exploits, and a new look and feel to the virtual San Vanelona environment.

Skate 2 is available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and is rated T for “Teen” by the ESRB. It carries a suggested price of $59.99 on both platforms.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Gaming

How to find PlayStation VR2 games on the PS5’s PlayStation Store

An image featuring several launch window titles for the PlayStation VR2.

PlayStation VR2 is out now, and many of us are trying out the headset for the first time. If you didn't buy the Horizon Call of the Mountain bundle, you'll need to buy some games for the headset on the PS5's PlayStation Store. Right now, we have the benefit of the headset and its biggest launch titles being prominently featured on the PlayStation Store on PS5. That won't always be the case, though.
PSVR2 is not backward compatible with games for its predecessor, and just searching "VR" on the PlayStation Store will bring up many games that are only compatible with the original PlayStation VR headset. As such, searching for PSVR2 games manually on the PlayStation Store is more complicated than it might seem. To ensure you don't accidentally buy a game you can't play in your new headset, this is how you can find and identify PSVR2 games on the PS5's PlayStation Store.
How to manually find PlayStation VR2 games on the PlayStation Store

Currently, the "Latest" tab of the PlayStation Store does have featured widgets for specific games and an entire row dedicated to PSVR2 games, with a "View All" option at the end, which will bring you a list of the headset's games and demos. That's currently the easiest way to find PSVR2 games, but it likely won't stay there as we get further out from the PSVR2's launch. To manually search for PSVR2 games, you'll need to head over to the Browse section of the PlayStation Store. By default, "All Games" for PS4, PSVR, PS5, and PSVR2 will be shown, sorted by bestselling. To filter out non-PSVR2 games, choose the "Filter" button featuring three lines and a downward-pointing arrow on the screen's left side.
Once there, you'll see filters for price, genre, platform, release date, VR, and age rating. To ensure you're only served PSVR2 games, you'll want to go to the platform tab and choose the PS5 option and to the VR tab to choose the PSVR2 option. Once that's done, you can sort them by bestselling, most downloaded, name, release date, or price in the filter menu. Once everything is set to your liking, you can press the circle button to exit out of those filter options and you will see a list of games that all work with PSVR2. From here, you can easily access each game's store page before choosing whether or not you want to buy and download them.
How to tell if a game is PlayStation VR2-compatible

Gaming

The new Skate game is a free-to-play live service title with microtransactions

A player does a trick on a skateboard in skate.

In the premiere episode of EA's new dev diary series The Board Room, we learned that the next game in the Skate series -- simply stylized as skate. -- will be a free-to-play title with microtransactions and a live service title that developer Full Circle will support for the foreseeable future.
The Board Room | skate.
This approach might be a bit worrying for fans who just wanted a more traditional Skate 4, but the developer explains in the video that they really want it to be the only Skate game going forward, which is why they've stylized its title as skate. with a period at the end. Expect it to be a multiplayer-focused live service title that gets frequent updates over time depending on what the developers want to add and what the community requests.
Of course, this free-to-play approach means skate. will have microtransactions. That said, the developers are promising that it won't be pay-to-win as players can't buy in-game advantages, no areas are locked behind a paywall, and there are no loot boxes. They also teased that it's a game that they want to be available everywhere, so players can expect it on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and even mobile devices eventually.
While the business model for skate. was the biggest news from this presentation, a few more specific details about the game were also discussed. We got a look at collaborative zones where players can work together to build skate parks and got confirmation that skate. will have full cross-play when it launches. We also learned the name of the city skate. is set in is called San Vansterdam. It looks like it will be a large playground where players can spend a lot of time skating, grinding, running, and climbing over whatever they come across.
Skate. is currently in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. There is no final release date just yet, but as EA has previously explained, interested players can sign up to playtest the game before its official launch.

Gaming

EA wants your help to test the next Skate game

Skate park in new Skate game.

Publisher Electronic Arts and developer Full Circle have released a new video for the upcoming Skate game, with early "pre-pre-alpha" footage. The developer assures fans it's still working on the highly anticipated game and is even requesting play testers to assist in the game's creation.

Still Working On It | skate.