Review: Vans SK8: Pool Service

Overview Not the best skateboarding game out there, but not the worst either (I am referring of course to iSkate - Skateboarding...man what a terrible game). Essentially you have a choice between either Bucky Lasek or Omar Hassan in Vans Sk8: Pool Service. As the name implies, you're skating in an old abandoned rec center swimming pool as you improve your score over time to unlock achievements as well as different decks and wheels. Features Let's start with the tricks first. Both Bucky and Omar share the same "bag of tricks" in their repertoire (fifteen tricks total) and one "special" trick, which does differ between the two. There are five different musical tracks in the game as well. The ability to turn each song on and/or off is also available. The game also has a ton of options in the gameplay from timed runs, no bails, not enough time, etc. You can also customize your deck and wheels as your overall scores go up in the game and you unlock more options. Breakdown The Good: The graphics for this game look great and the characters interact well with the environment. The tricks look really good in midair and the pause button is a nice feature to "freeze frame" a trick and take a screen shot of it to view later. The amount of different game types is also a really nice feature here. There are over twelve different types of gameplay in this title. As you unlock more stuff, each one gets harder and you can definitely get a lot of gameplay out of the different choices that are presented here. I'm going to mention the tricks here twice, once in "The Good" section and once in "The Bad." I'm doing this because there are over fifteen different tricks you can do which isn't that bad. It's enough to keep the tricks from getting really stale, really fast (which tends to happen with skate games). The variety of the tricks ranges from just about everything and they look really good with the backgrounds as you perform them. The bad side of this is...well, why don't we just get on to the bad side of things now... The Bad: There's a lot of bad here. I'll be honest, I've been into skateboarding and skateboarding games since "Skate or Die" for the NES. Seriously, I've been playing these games forever. So when I heard this was coming out, I was really excited about it. The shots and trailer looked great, too bad the game doesn't really deliver. I've also seen some of the reviews for this game and they are surprisingly...good? I have no idea why? Either these people have never played a really "fun" skate game, or they just have nothing to base this on except "Touchgrind." (which isn't a bad game either, but I'm not reviewing that here so...back to Vans) This game just feels unfinished. For one, there's two skaters. Come one now! Two? That's it? And they each share the exact same tricks sans one, their special trick. Weaksauce! Yup, I said weaksauce! Deal with it. As I said in "The Good" section, the amount of tricks is a good thing. They don't get old too quickly...the first time you play. Once you play this for a few hours or so they get extremely repetitive because each skater has the same tricks. I mean they could of at least changed the control layout so that up is one trick for Bucky and another for Omar...but sadly, no. Second, there is zero speed in this game. None! You always feel like you're going the same speed, no matter what. That really starts to suck after a while and makes the game, well...boring. I mean how can you have a game based on skateboarding and not have them go faster? I don't get it? Third, and the biggest issue here, are the controls or lack there of. They're terrible. You never really feel "in control" at all. The skater just kind of goes wherever he wants to go. Even when you do finally get the hang of things, the controls still feel clunky and just not quite right. Performing tricks is painfully easy to do, just swipe left, right, up, down, etc. and the skater does which ever trick he's suppose to do. It's really easy....except landing them. If you don't want to spin the skater, then you're good. Go up, do a trick, come back down. But once you start spinning it's really a crap shoot whether he will land it or not. It comes back down to the control thing, you're just not the one in control here. It gets frustrating and eventually you just want to stop playing. Lastly would have to be the lack of skate parks, pools, whatever. There is only one pool here, that's it. It gets old real fast. Even the same level with another background would've helped here...I don't know? Give us something! But having only the one level really hurts this game more than anything. You really just get tired of it and again, it just makes you want to turn the game off. The Verdict For $4.99 this game just isn't worth the money. I really had high hopes for this game and it just does not deliver. The lack of levels, bad controls, and the lack of skate sounds (their aren't any) makes this a pretty terrible game. It's fun for about five minutes and then you're going to wish you had that five dollars back. I would recommend waiting for a lite version first and trying this game out for free before buying it.

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