As I am a huge fan of skateboarding and games regarding that sport I also enjoy playing those games on my mobile phones, especially on my iPhone.
After Gameloft and Activision, EA also throws it’s major skateboarding game into the rink. I played all three of them and have my own opinions about all of them.
The first one was Skater Nation by Gameloft. It was quite cheap, did a good job of proofing the concept of a working skateboarding game on the iPhone. That’s about it. There’s not really much motivation over time, but anyway it’s a nice game. Over Gameloft’s Happy Hour you might be able to get it for free.
The next one was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. It’s a remake of the classic console and PC game, and also looks like that. It’s really nice, offers much content and does a good job at wasting your time. Regarding graphics and sound it’s a real classic. It doesn’t look great and only has really few songs. It’s available at a higher price of 9.99$ and it’s worth every penny. It’s a bit disappointing that Activision only got to release it in the US iTunes Store after all.
Last but not least we have another remake. It’s EA’s Skate It, which was originally released on Nintendo’s DS. But now that I played both versions I’m not really sure about which version was intended to be the original. The iPhone version is much better, regarding graphics, sound, controls and just about everything. Without the stylus it feels much more intuitive to get fire away your various tricks. As I’m a huge fan of the series on consoles it was a bit difficult to learn the little different tricks at first. On consoles you need to pull the stick down and then up again to do an Ollie. On the iPhone you just swipe up on the screen, without swiping down first.
If you just want to play around a little Skater Nation is probably the best one to start with. It’s cheap, it’s good and it’s nice for some time. If you want a game with more substance you better go with Tony Hawk’s or Skate It. Tony Hawk’s is more of an arcade game while Skate It is better for simulation fans. Any of those games currently has an iPad optimized version.
Download Skate Nation on the iTunes Store.
Download Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on the iTunes Store.
Download Skate It on the iTunes Store.
