|| REVIEW || Skater XL (PC)

Developed By : Easy Day Studios
Published By : Easy Day Studios / Reverb Games
Category : Sports, Simulation, Skateboarding
Release Date : July 28, 2020

For a lot of people, video games offer opportunities at doing something you're either incapable of doing in real life, or just maybe something you're not good at doing. For me, one of those things has been skateboarding. I can't balance for anything on a board, and certainly wouldn't trust myself to even attempt pulling off something as "simple" as an ollie. Luckily though, I can pick up a controller and, while I might not be familiar with the world and the lingo, I can have a character hop on a board for me and give it my best. I'm still not that great at it, but at least I won't break any bones. 

Now, generally speaking, if you mention skateboarding and video games to people, they'll usually think one of two things. Either Tony Hawk Pro Skater or Skate, but these titles haven't been the only ones to exist in this genre. And, if Easy Day Studios has anything to say about it, they won't be the only ones that immediately come to mind with their newly released entry, Skater XL.

While the game has just fully launched, it's been available in an Early Access capacity since December of 2018. And even though I didn't get a chance to check it out during that time, it was always on my radar. So for the sake of this review I can't make any notes or comparisons on how the game grew during that time.

As of this writing, the game features a handful of maps for you to skate on, including a high school campus, downtown LA, a big-air ramp out in the desert, and a courthouse area as well. Each of these areas offers plenty of different objects and spots for you to show off what you can do with your board.

First, though, you'll need to master riding the board with the controls where you're manually in control of each foot. It's a scheme that's mostly familiar to that of the Skate games but it's got a bit of it's own flavor too. Each joystick controls a specific foot, and this is highlighted by a neat interface decision for your first hour in the game. You'll have a model of the controller in the lower corner of your screen with the left joystick highlighted as blue and the right as orange. You'll also notice that your feet on the board correspond to the same colors. So it's a little bit more involved than just having the scheme be "front foot this stick, back foot other stick". When you spin around into a goofy stance you'll need to adjust your trick setups accordingly. 

Once you've mastered control of the board, the only real thing left for you to do is complete all the challenges on each map. These are broken up into different lists and will force you to use every skill in vary degrees of difficulty, all over the map's spots. These can include incredibly basic tricks where all you need to do is ollie over an obstacle, or pull off simple rotations, or it can involve more advanced tricks like board-tweaking grabs while rotating. There's even a list or two of full lines for you to run where you'll need to complete a sequence in order for completion. 

Now again, I never played Skater XL during it's Early Access phase so I can't speak for where the game started and how it may have grown in that time, but where it is right now I can say its great, but there are definitely still some areas that have room for improvement. One thing that stuck out to me is that a lot of times I felt like it was almost too easy to fall off the board. I noticed that some of the collision detection with in-world objects like benches can be unforgiving and if you so much as nick a corner you're flat on your butt. 

If you've played other skateboarding games in recent years you've probably noticed wonky detections of what's considered the "ground". I can't tell how many times when playing Skate 3 I'd be trying to trick over a bank and my skater would rock sideways trying to figure out what was the ground below me, and in turn ruin the trick or line I had planned. I did encounter this issue a bit in Skater XL but not as much as I had in other games which was a very nice touch. 

However the biggest "issue" I noticed was something that it took me watching a friend streaming the game to even catch. From the knees up, your skater character is stiff as a board, and I mean stiff. If you take a bad dig off a jump, you'll end up looking like Shaq when he used to fall down on the court. The counter side to this is that the legs can have some pretty interesting reactions themselves on the other side of the spectrum, bending and contorting in ways that shouldn't be possible. And while I labeled this as an "issue" it really isn't a game breaking one. For me personally I spend my time completely focused on the board and feet, so all this has really done is make me wonder about character stiffness in...well every skateboarding game I've ever played. 

All in all, this really is a fun game and an amazing entry into the skateboarding genre. It's not perfect, but it was highly enjoyable for me. The control scheme was a bit to get used to but that's just because I had very recently been playing Skate 3 and auto-piloting back to those controls. Even so, the scheme here is very easy to pick up and run with. If you have ever enjoyed boarding games in the past you'll love this one. I can only assume that there are more maps to come in the future, but if you get bored of the ones in the game there are community built levels as well. So hop on your board and join the Skater XL community, you won't regret it at all. 

Game Rating : 9 / 10

Pick up the game HERE on Steam

 Also available on Playstation 4, Xbox One
and Nintendo Switch

A code for this game was graciously provided
to the site for the purpose of review