That's what EA is hoping for with Skate It, the Nintendo Wii iteration of their Skate series of skateboarding games. Taking the gameplay of the original and adding support for the Nintendo Wii Balance Board controller, EA had the chance to create the most realistic skateboarding experience to ever come to a home gaming console. Let's ask the assembled video game critics of the world how that all turned out.

1UP (Pre-Revision)
The slightest twitch or turn of the Wii-mote creates a wholly new effect — and frequently, it's one you don't even want. It's even worse on the Wii Balance Board; by default, the turning is overly responsive, even after reducing the board's sensitivity. However, this makes it harder for the device to register a trick. It worked better when I stepped off the board and then tapped a specific area to pull off the desired move. This isn't skateboarding — it's crappy aerobics.

1UP (Post-Revision)
The Balance Board is no longer oversensitive (although it's still hard to turn), and executing tricks no longer requires lifting a foot off the board and tapping a specific section — it does an adequate job of sensing when you touch an area with your heel or toe. It takes awhile to get the hang of, but it's certainly possible to play the game this way. Additionally the Wii Remote responds accurately to repeated motions 80 percent of the time. It's still not perfect, but it gets the job done to a much better degree than what we originally experienced.

NZGamer
Although the game flows with a beautiful filmic quality and some great features like slow-mo wipe-outs (complete with eye-watering crunches) and the Thrasher “Hall of Meat” which catalogues your injuries (broken pelvis? Get up you girl), the graphics really let the game down. While your character’s shadow is pretty slick, we’re talking distance shimmer and floating tree foliage. There are 2D sprites making up the backgrounds and times, and the whole thing, while looking almost-good-enough just comes off as amateurishly designed. PlayStation 2 at best – and I know the Wii’s not known as an eye-candy powerhouse… but come on. This is scrappy.

Game Informer
Skate It’s ease of use comes at a cost. The developer has (wisely) papered over some of the vagaries of interpreting player motions by sometimes giving you tricks you had not intended. At least the game’s challenges don’t often ask to perform specific moves. Still, I miss the satisfaction in the original Skate of mapping out a series of tricks in your mind as you approach a curb and then executing them perfectly. Furthermore, the game requires you to pull tricks earlier than you’d think due to slight lag. This makes judging rails trickier and your combo strings shorter.

IGN
Skate It comes highly recommended. The original Skate rejuvenated skating games with a new control scheme and a real sense of freedom, and that success carries over to the Wii. If you already played the 360 or PS3 version you won't find much new here, but it's great to have it on Nintendo's platform. This is a big package, including a long story mode, a huge variety of challenges, multiplayer games, a great soundtrack, and balance board support. It's too bad the balance board controls aren't friendlier, but I'm perfectly happy just using the remote and nunchuk. Aside from the sleek menus it's not much to look at, but the gameplay is engaging enough to overlook the visuals. Scanning your environment, plotting a long line of tricks, then figuring out how to pull it all off is very rewarding. Buy it.

Kotaku
To say I was deeply disappointed by this game would be an understatement. But, I'll be the first to admit that I had unreasonably high expectations both for what Skate It would do with the board, and (I'm starting to think) what the board itself is capable of delivering. Perhaps four digital scales coated in plastic just aren't meant to be able to measure precise shifts in weight. Maybe the balance board is something better suited to the sorts of games that it shipped with, titles that only need binary responses. Left, right. On, off. Forward, backward. It's probably too early to tell, but maybe after I check out the Shaun White sitting on my coffee table I'll know.

Did they ship two different versions of the game or something?

The idea of creating a fun, pick-up-and-play skater that uses the Wii Balance Board as a controller was sublime, I thought at the time. What game, besides maybe snowboarding, is a better fit for a balance board controller than a skating one? Then I got a chance to check it out at another event in Los Angeles. The controls were a bit tricky, but after playing around with them for a bit, I seemed to be getting the hang of it. Skate It quickly became one of my most anticipated Wii games for the holiday season. I needed something to do with that balance board tucked under the sofa and this seemed like the perfect fit.

But did the final product live up to my expectations, delivering a pick-up-and-play skating game that uses body motion to let you really drop into the experience? Lets see.

Loved
Flick It: One of the things I love about Skate It's controls are their use of the remote to pull off tricks. Using just the remote to play the game may not work, but when you combine the remote and the game's clever flick it controls with the nunchuk for precision, Skate It is quite fun.

Level Design: Skate It's level design is fairly eclectic, featuring an around-the-world selection of skate parks, city streets and disaster areas to skate around in. You can even clutter up marked off areas with your own bits and pieces, essentially creating mini skate parks.

Hated
Balance Board Controls: I had high, perhaps head-in-the-clouds high expectations for the balance board controls when I first tested them out in Skate It. They seemed pretty responsive, and I figured they would add a lot of depth to the game. But what the hell happened? What tested as deft and responsive, shipped as unwieldy and painfully awkward. Not only could I not pull off the tricks the game's campaign mode insists you finish to continue, but half the time the game throught I had jumped on the board or stepped off of it. To make matters worse it would stop the game to scold me and then pause to recalibrate.

Remote-Only Controls: After giving up on the fit board as controller part of the way through the tutorial, I moved on to remote-only controls. They're kinda neat. You hold the remote like it's a skateboard and tool around a park, flicking out to perform different tricks. The problem is, the controls for turning aren't responsive enough for a bulk of what you have to, or want to do in the game. And at times the same motions performed different tricks.

Radical Commentator: As soon as the game kicks off you're saddled with a buddy, a cameraman buddy. And man is he annoying. The fact that you're using unresponsive controls to pull off intricate tricks is frustrating enough, do I really need some asshat shouting out the same tired phrases at me every time I manage to break half of the bones in my body?

Wasteland Setting: There is no one in Skate It besides you. No pedestrians, no cops, no competitors. Even when there are people there ( you can hear their voices), they're not there. Even your wordy cameraman buddy who just won't shut up throughout the game is never anywhere to be seen. Skate It doesn't take place in a wasteland, apparently it takes place in the head of a schizophrenic. He's always hearing voices, but no one's ever there.

Horrible Camera Man: Not only is your cameraman annoying, talkative and invisible, he's also a really, really, really bad photographer and videographer. Would a close-up of my jeans-covered ass really make the cover of a skate magazine? Does the back of my head zipping down the line of a fence really make for good video? No, not even in a video game.

Pass The Remote Multiplayer: Not only are there no people in the single player campaign, the multiplayer campaign, an experience that by definition includes more than one person, is also bereft of other characters. Instead of going head-to-head in any of the challenges or modes with two remotes, you play pass the remote. It's almost like this was designed to be played on a single DS.

****ing Respawn Points: The only thing more frustrating than having to make a run over and over and over again because of sloppy controls, is respawning each time about two-feet from the curb, the drop, the stairs, the whatever you're supposed to jump or grind, making it impossible to get up enough speed to actually do it.

Cutting Corners: Why can't my skateboarder step off his board? Why instead does he have to spend time pushing straight into a wall or a corner until, eventually, the board slips out of the area it's stuck and he can continue moving?

To say I was deeply disappointed by this game would be an understatement. But, I'll be the first to admit that I had unreasonably high expectations both for what Skate It would do with the board, and (I'm starting to think) what the board itself is capable of delivering. Perhaps four digital scales coated in plastic just aren't meant to be able to measure precise shifts in weight. Maybe the balance board is something better suited to the sorts of games that it shipped with, titles that only need binary responses. Left, right. On, off. Forward, backward. It's probably too early to tell, but maybe after I check out the Shaun White sitting on my coffee table I'll know.

Taken on its own, Skate It isn't as bad a game as my hateds might lead you to believe. Two of the three control methods are flawed. But the remaining one can be quite fun. When you look at the game with just that control method in mind you're left with something that has it's moments mixed in with a healthy dose of shortcomings. But hey, at least it does have its moments.

Skate It was developed by EA Montreal and published by Electronic Arts, released in North America on Nov. 19 for the Wii. Retails for $49.99. Played through several countries in both campaign and free skate modes using all three control methods. Played all multiplayer modes with my son.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

This crop of Skate It screens shows some of the character models tricking out in a variety of the game's locations as they try to win Thrasher Magazine’s coveted Skater of the Year award.

Graphically, this game is definitely looking better as we head for the release date. It is all firmly Wii quality, but the lighting effects look pretty good and those avatars look reasonably humanoid. Still no word on how it handles using the balance board/wiimote combo but things are pointing towards hopeful.

I wouldn't fancy falling on that grinding rail, though. It looks like it would cut you in half.

Skate It of course returns you to the city of San Vanelona, which is apparently in ruins following some sort of catastrophe. Rather than help the city rebuild and aid people in gathering up the shattered remnants of the lives they once knew, you instead selfishly follow your dream of becoming Thrasher Magazine's Skater of the Year. Jerk.

Get on Board with Skate It This November
EA’s Award-Winning Videogame Delivers All the Fun and High Energy of Skateboarding This Holiday

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—EA Montreal and Black Box, studios of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS), announced today that their award-winning Skate It videogame will hit retail stores starting November 19th in North America and November 20th in Europe for the Wii™ and Nintendo DS™. With intuitive Wii remote, nunchuck and DS stylus controls and the optional use of the Wii Balance Board, Skate It delivers a fun and unique skateboarding experience for skate fans and gamers of all ages.

Skate It brings gamers back to San Vanelona, a city that’s been safely evacuated, but left in ruins after being hit by a series of crazy events. Here, players are rediscovering their favourite spots, getting worked in Hall of Meat, and earning the opportunity to travel the world, all on their path to becoming Thrasher Magazine’s Skater of the Year. In Skate It, gamers will be able to make skate spots their own by moving objects like ramps, rails, and benches to fit their individual skating styles. The game also boasts a variety of multiplayer challenges, including Best Trick and Best Line, which will have players ripping it up with their friends as they prove their skateboarding prowess.

Skate It recently received the “Best Wii Game” award at the Games Convention tradeshow in Leipzig, Germany. Skate It was also nominated for Best Sports game for the “Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2008”. Skate It is developed by EA Montreal in Montreal, Quebec and Black Box in Vancouver, British Columbia and is rated “E” for Everyone by the ESRB and 7+ by PEGI for Wii and 3+ by PEGI for Nintendo DS.

Hit the jump for the full soundtrack listing, keeping in mind that the songs with the asterisk next to them are the ones that are in both the Skate 2 and Skate It games. Even if you don't give a damn about the game it would make an excellent playlist for your next neighborhood barbecue.

EA Unveils Eclectic Soundtracks for Skate It and Skate 2
Track List Boasts Songs From Some of the Biggest and Most Influential Artists of All-Time Including Black Sabbath, Public Enemy, The Clash and Wu-Tang Clan

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Black Box, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) studio, today revealed the soundtracks that will power the award-winning Skate It and Skate 2. These two skateboarding games bring the sport’s incredible tricks, epic moves and high energy to gamers with all of the fun – and none of the bruises! The 52 featured songs are from some of music's most influential and celebrated artists including Black Sabbath, Public Enemy, Judas Priest and Wu-Tang Clan.

“The soundtracks for Skate It and Skate 2 builds upon last year’s critically acclaimed Skate soundtrack,” said Chris Parry, Associate Producer. “The songs reflect the culture of skateboarding, with some tracks picked by the pros themselves, and others coming straight out of iconic skate videos. Skateboarding today is an eclectic mix of people and influences and this is true of where we took this year’s soundtracks. Look for some old school soul and funk, a few rock anthems, some good beats and a lot of classic punk!”

“Skateboarding culture is like no other culture in the world and with that comes a unique sound of its own," said Steve Schnur, worldwide executive of music and marketing. “Our goal was to create two soundtracks that bring together classic acts and explosive new bands while fearlessly crossing all genres. This soundtrack is truly a tribute to the skate lifestyle, where legendary tracks by The Clash, Judas Priest and WAR can stand alongside cult legends like Dayton Sidewinders and The Specials as well as groundbreaking new acts like Awesome Snakes and Money Your Love.”

Skate It and Skate 2 continue to deepen and expand the breadth of the Skate franchise. Skate It, a recent recipient of 2008’s Best Wii™ Game award at the German Games Convention in Leipzig, brings the fun and soul of skateboarding to the Wii and the Nintendo DS™. Skate 2 lets players flaunt their style like never before with double the bag of tricks on the PLAYSTATION®3 system and the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system.

See below for the entire Skate 2 soundtrack. Songs included in Skate It are marked with a '1'.

SKATE 2
ARTIST SONG
Althea & Donna Uptown Top Ranking
Anubis Anubis
ASG The Dull Blade
Awesome Snakes I Want A Snake*
Black Sabbath Symptom Of The Universe
Black Tide Shockwave
China Creeps Stay On Or Die
Cut Chemist Addictive*
D.R.I. Beneath The Wheel
Dayton Sidewinders Go Ahead On*
Dragonforce Heroes Of Our Time
ELO Show Down
Fujiya & Miyagi Collarbone*
Gang Starr Step In The Arena*
Gaslight Anthem I'da Called You Woody, Joe*
Goons Of Doom She Wore Rat Skin Boots
Guilty Simpson Piglets
High Tension Wires They Fall Apart
Judas Priest Freewheel Burning*
Korrupted Hoodlums S.K.A.T.E.
Koushik feat. Percee P Cold Beats*
LL Cool J Rock The Bells*
Louis XIV Guilt By Association*
McRad Weakness
Money Your Love For Kristoffer*
Motorhead Eat The Rich
Nas Made You Look
Oh No Heavy
One Man Army It's Empty
Ponce De Leon Gator Jaws*
Public Enemy Harder Than You Think
Queen Sea Big Shark Hold Your Hand*
Radio Reelers Runnin’ Out
Rage Against The Machine Sleep Now In The Fire
Riverboat Gamblers Uh Oh!
Sam & Dave Hold On, I’m Comin’
Sly & The Family Stone Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)*
Stiff Little Fingers Alternative Ulster
Suicidal Tendencies Possessed 2 Skate*
T.S.O.L. Superficial Love
Teenage Bottlerocket Crashing
Texas Thieves Los Pool Riders
The Clash Death Or Glory*
The Riptides Return To Blood Beach
The Specials Ghost Town*
Tickled Pink Reach Out And Give Me Your Hand
Underground Railroad To Candyland Square Ball
WAR Low Rider*
Wu-Tang Clan Protect Ya Neck
Year Long Disaster Leda Atomica*
Youth Brigade I Hate My Life

* Song included in Skate It soundtrack

To review the full song lists for both titles and purchase the music from the soundtracks, please visit www.ea.com/eatrax/.

Skate It and Skate 2 deliver all the style, fun, creativity and culture of skateboarding. Skate It is rated E by the ESRB and Skate 2 has not yet been rated. Skate It will ship holiday 2008 and Skate 2 will ship early 2009.

This trailer for the Wii version of Skate It shows off some of the exotic locations where It may be Skated. You got your London (red phone boxes - you don't find THOSE anywhere else), Paris (or Blackpool — hard to tell at this resolution), Barcelona (no Gaudi grinding, sadly), Rio (sand) and Shanghai (chinese-looking benches).

The Wii version will let you use the balance board in conjunction with your Wii-mote - place your bets now for the first person to sue when they break it trying to do an Ollie.

That's something I haven't heard. So... Our focus is just working with what is provided by Nintendo. So there's not an extra piece. You know, it's really about working with the Balance Board. So if you have one, this is another game you can play with it. It's not about fitness, it's about skateboarding and having fun.

There's a video after the jump. Watch it if you like.

EA denies Skate It Balance Board clip-on accessory [Balance Board Blog via Go Nintendo]

Obviously, one isn't required to have a Wii Fit Balance Board to play Skate It. It can also be controlled using only a Wii Remote. And that, somewhat surprisingly, works rather well, too.

Still, it's a bit unnerving at first. It's simple, though, with little in the way of button pressing. Simply press A to accelerate, down on the D-pad to stop and B to perform grabs. Everything else is motion controlled — kicks, flips, ollies, turns, everything.

Turning your board with twists of the remote requires a steady hand. Skate It will require just as much extremity agility and concentration as the original Skate and sticks closely to the formula established by the first. You won't be doing as much wild waggling and joint-killing shaking as some of the Wii's other offerings. Instead, because Skate It's controls are about finesse and precision, you'll find yourself looking a bit more zen as you try to avoid unintentional board slides and the not-uncommon faceplant.

As with the original Skate, I had a bit of trouble shaking off my Tony Hawk Pro Skater past and becoming reaccustomed to EA's approach. But after a few minutes with the Wii Remote and the Balance Board schemes, both rewarding in their own way, it was very much a peaceful, enjoyable experience, similarly sandbox-y and mostly pressure free — editors from other outlets waiting in line notwithstanding.

My only complaints with the control scheme lie in their unfamiliarity. The Wii Remote would perform well in some parts, with nose manuals via a quick remote hop and downward angle working like a charm. But in other instances, I'd find myself steering wildly out of control. It was also pretty easy to lose one's center on the Balance Board and feel the strain of fake skateboarding on the underdeveloped calves. (Perhaps that possible skateboard-like frame could address this, but we'll have to wait to find out.)

Still, I left Skate It pretty impressed, admiring the control scheme and seemingly smart implementation of the Balance Board. We're looking forward to spending more time with it at E3, but for now we'll just soak in the screen shots and become more familiar with the controls in the galleries below.

But I was a bit worried about how the game would make sure virtual boarders weren't slowly moving off the balance board's sweet spot. Scooting was a problem I noticed while playing Wii Fit. The more into a game I got, the more intense it was the more I tended to scoot around on the board over time. After ten minutes or so of intense gaming I'd notice the game wasn't responding right because my feet were no longer centered.

The devs told me that that is a concern of theirs as well. So much so that they're actually looking into the possibility of shipping the game with some sort of form that snaps onto the balance board to give it more of a skateboard look and feel. More importantly, this skateboard frame would help gamers realize when they were scooting off the board's center spot without having to look down, and potential facing into a virtual curb.

Sounds like a fantastic idea to me. [Image Credit]

Boo me off the stage, he insisted, if I do... and then he proceeded to use the phrase.

"If it's not built from the ground up, is it a port? Not really."

Blackwood explained that before Black Box started their work on the Wii and DS versions of Skate, they had to figure out if the controls would work.

"It we couldn't get that great flick it feel, we weren't going to do it," he said.

Later on, while trying out the Wii version of the game for myself, I was told the team spent three to four months working on getting those controls right and for the most part, it felt like they succeeded.

To play the Wii version, you hold the remote flat, facing it toward the screen and then move it around as if it is the board you are standing on. The A button makes your skater push with his foot, and the B makes him hold the board. The rest is done with motion. You turn by tilting the remote side to side, manual and nose manual by tilting the remote forward or back and do tricks by snapping the remote up, to the side or in tight circles.

I was able to do quite a few tricks with the remote, including a new Kung-Fu move requires jumping up in the air and pushing both buttons at the same time, after just a few minutes with the controller. There was a slight lag between the motion and a jump, but it felt like it was something built into the game on purpose rather than a design flaw. The turning was tight and responsive and for the most part if felt like a Skate game.

One very noticeable difference is that in Skate it on the Wii there are no pedestrians. The developers explain this away by saying a series of disasters have struck the city, leaving you with a playground of upturned asphalt, broken signs and bent rails to skate in, but I suspect that some of that decision was also driven by the necessity of developing an Xbox 360, PS3 game for the Wii.

While the game will also make use of the Wii Balance Board, allowing you to steer and do manuals with it by shifting your weight, we weren't allowed to test that out at last night's event.

The game will have you leaving the city and traveling to real cities around the world to compete in skate events, the developers told me.

While the graphics certainly take a hit, the slick feel of the controls, I suspect, will more than make up for that.

I didn't get a chance to check out the DS version, unfortunately, but in the demo they showed how you will perform stunts by tracing lines across a skateboard on the touch screen. Most moves looked like they were made by drawing angles lines or open shapes, like a rough J or U, though one trick required a odd-looking loopdeloop.

Skate It looks to replace the dual analog control scheme from the original skate with a Wii remote-only method that looks serviceable based on the promo video. As expected, the game also plans to use the soon to be release Wii Fit Balance Board, but executive producer Scott Blackwood is light on details. IGN has the full scoop.

Skate It on Wii and Nintendo DS [IGN]

Consider it rumor for now—whilst fantasizing about Wii Balance Board control!—and pretend to be surprised when EA and IGN work out their arrangement on the game's potential public reveal. In the meantime, we'll check with EA to see if there's more substance to this.

Formerly the Home of: Skate Shreds Wii and DS [IGN]