To take out those pent up emotions, the game features a nice little side attraction called the Hall of Meat that rewards you for bailing in some of the most spectacular ways possible. If you pull both triggers and press both sticks in your skater immediately ditches their board and let physics take over, while in mid flight your trick stick allows you to alter your body position. A series of challenges await those who wish to pursue them, ranging from accomplishments such as break every rib in your body to such goals as gain so much rotation in a bail after traveling at above 25 miles per hour. After getting trounced at a jam session ten times before finally nailing it, it’s easy to underestimate how therapeutic it is to send your skater plunging into a realm of earthen pain all for the sake of entertainment. That and completing such challenges not only gets you achievement points but also gets you cash in game to spend on new threads or boards.

One nice feature that Skate 2 has over its predecessor is the ability to not only get off of your board, but also the ability to move certain objects around like ramps and rails. By pressing down on the D-pad you can save a marker, which allows you to teleport back to that location by holding up on the D-pad for a couple seconds. Objects can also be saved to this marker, so even if they get moved around as you bail into a dumpster rather than fly over it you can set both your position as well as theirs exactly back to as they were. Controlling your skater on foot is terribly difficult to get used to and never feels natural, but it is not something you need to do often and is relegated mainly to if you want to walk up a flight of stairs or need to move stuff around.

Sadly, the replay system is a fraction of its former self. Gone are many of the camera options and effects, which are apparently going to be included in an as yet unreleased DLC pack. Given how surprisingly beefy the original game’s replay editor was, the sequels rendition feels like a definitive step backwards. There is some level of integration with the web, allowing you to upload up to thirty seconds of a replay to share online as well as use a web tool to design your own logo for use in the game.

Your ability to record it for posterity may be nerfed, but the game’s overall presentation is spot on. The skaters are well animated and detailed, down to how boards get scuffed, skin gets scraped and bloodied, and clothing gets downright dirty. Of course, if you don’t bail quite that often your hang times will let you take in a well-detailed city, complete with car and foot traffic to help make it more believable. The game has an eclectic soundtrack, ranging from the Wu-Tang Clan to Rage Against the Machine, and is lengthy enough to not rely on a couple of songs to carry the game. The star of the show however are the sound effects, with a large variety of detailed sounds down to the sound a boards wheels make against a variety of odd surfaces.

Though Skate 2 doesn’t differ greatly from the original it does stand well on its own. Despite how the game can be frustrating at times for all the wrong reasons you can’t help but enjoy yourself when you are nailing tricks and catching huge air off of a quarter pipe. The game isn’t flawless, but it is solid where it counts and does drive the series forward if only by a small margin.

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