Session: Skate Sim

Instead of just another arcade based skateboarding game, the team at Crea-ture studio decided to take a step in another direction. Session: Skate Sim is the result of a team of talented skateboarders and developers sitting down together, determined to produce an authentic skateboarding experience.

Session: Skate Sim is unique amongst its peers. Its control scheme, while taking time to master, is massively rewarding. Rolling around the streets and finding your own skating lines is addictively entertaining. It's a shame about the quest system, its overall presentation and some of the rough edges but do I feel Session is a few patches away from greatness.

Despite the 1.0 release, Session: Skate Sim still has a few issues. However, this shouldn’t keep any skating fan away from this deeply rewarding simulator that can, at times, feel just as rewarding as the real sport.

I’ve played a ton of skateboarding games in my time. Session: Skate Sim is easily the most challenging one I’ve ever picked up. The fascinating thing is that the game knows this fact, inside and out. You aren’t expected to be any kind of competent right off the bat. Moreover, you aren’t bombarded with a host of missions and challenges. Instead, you’re encouraged to take all the time you need to get better. I am of course, incapable of such zen-like patience.

Session: Skate Sim is the best skateboarding simulator you can play today. It might not be the best skateboarding game, though, with so much focus on getting the feel of the ride just right. The learning curve is such a steep cliff that many more casual skateboarding fans (or especially those without huge chunks of time to dedicate to a game) will likely give up before being confident on these virtual decks. Still, Session: Skate Sim is a challenging simulator worth your time if you’re a hardcore skateboarding fan.

With a steep learning curve and bland presentation, Session: Skate Sim ends up being a mixed package for hardcore and casual fans of the genre.

In particular, it’d be nice if the game did more in the way of teaching you the ropes, offered different control schemes, and provided a wider array of accessibility options. In general as well, it’d be nice if the game offered more in the way of incentives, excitement, and action to keep you coming back for more, regardless of its punishing difficulty.

Unfortunately, I feel that while it’s a very good *simulation*, it isn’t a very good *game*, and I can really only recommend this to the hardcore skate fans who don’t like all the arcade-style skate games out there. While I did have some fun with it, there was just way too much frustration with even basic elements that shouldn’t be as difficult to understand as they were.

I’m going to be completely up front right now in the beginning to let you know that this review is coming from someone who is not a skater, nor was I expecting such a hardcore sim. My skating game credentials come from the Tony Hawk games and the Skate titles. So this review will be coming from someone who enjoyed more of the arcade style skating games. I thought Skate was realistic for its time, especially comparing it to the Tony Hawk games, but Session: Skate Sim makes Skate feel l...