Skate City Heroes - Just Bad Games

Skate City Heroes is a futuristic sci-fi skateboarding game and more it was created by zero scale game development and released to the Nintendo Wii in 2008. oh hold on we're covering another skateboarding game didn't we already play one of the worst in the genre Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5. ring a bell oh my hypnotherapist can vouch I will never forget Pro Skater 5. but don't worry about Skate City Heroes retreading worn genre space because as I mentioned before today's game offers more than what you'd expect from your standard wheelie plank sports game okay but uh how can we be so sure of that because I ran a preliminary background check on today's game and stumbled on developer zero scales old website have a look see it labels Skate City Heroes a skateboard Sim meets jump and run wow so it's a game focused on assaulties of skateboard use and upkeep alongside hopping and running away from the sport completely finally a game brave enough to recreate that time your parents spent money on a hobby you immediately abandoned I don't need karate lessons I'll teach myself it's the hill I die on huh that's how Shane died let's concentrate on sliding down those Hills shall we look it's Skate City Heroes check out that cover it sure is visible I don't think I've seen a group of teenagers more enraged and done with life in a single image maybe they're upset that creators reuse the same skateboard asset multiple times heck I'm angry the gal in the back is clearly not holding her skate deck at all is it floating geez what else is going on here um let's see we got a backdrop with reverse text era a girl with pink head crab hair gentlemen robot beep boop old Sport and oh look zoo zoo oh crap I remember Zoo that's a publisher connected to a just bad Rogues gallery of awful titles hey haven't you heard the saying never judge a book by its cover or publisher or character designs or peripheral compatibility no no you're right we can't just stamp this game ungood we need to experience it firsthand I'd say it's time to get our bearings and keep on trucking as we drop into another half pipe full of gross noodle arms pound the place Skate City Heroes right we load up the title start a new game and are immediately presented with a helpful hint hint games successfully saved real helpful on to the character selection screen we can finally meet the game's rad skaters we choose from characters like uh jealous who comes up with this stuff it's like a fake name slip up you'd nervously give authorities dude if the next character is Robert I vote we turn this thing off the next character's name is Chang which is passable I guess here they are jealous and Ching both incredibly pissed off both subtly clipping shoes through their boards these are the only characters you can choose from at the start of Skate City Heroes yup all other characters are locked behind what appear to be smelly green orbs look at those stink particles go seems we need to medals in game to crack these suckers open and widen our roster but really who needs more characters we have jalice our dead-eyed ray of sunshine that on closer inspection looks strangely out of this world [Music] well then we gotta pick Dallas let's learn how to shred we jump into the game's tutorial it sends us to a rooftop skate space peppered with elements to practice the illest skate move speaking of six skate tricks we haven't touched the controls and jalice is already pulling one off look she's kicking her board forward and going absolutely nowhere oh a no friction bushy halted make waste day excellent when we get a grip and finally head over to this glowing Beacon for we meet our personal Escape Mentor the hippie who I just gotta say gives off a very strong scent of Jack around the radio I mean come on it's like he's pulled straight from the series hey it's a cool style to eat the hippie offers us different tutorials to plop us on the ramp to skating success like skate and break which teaches us how to move and uh not move or jump which you guessed it teaches us how to hop around all tutorial lessons here no matter the Simplicity of action are overly explained and followed by a cut scene of our pal Ching pulling them off it's Overkill real slow going eventually we're taught how to do a rail grind and this is when we learn the most important lesson of all Skate City Heroes uses motion controls sure sure we figured we'd be prompted to flicker wobble away mode at some point but these controls are baked into Skate City Heroes and not just a little motion controls are essential to traversal in progress in this game wanna maintain balance on a rail motion control I want to link combos together with a manual you want to pull off any Fancy Feet aerial moves at all that's right motion controls baby basic boarding and point collecting system in this game play similar to what you find in the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series you string together tricks manuals and grinds to add multipliers to accumulated points in an attempt to score big attempt being the key word sometimes you'll chain moves and land other times you'll eat floor it's these motion controls we're often unaware of how the Wii mode is being read by the game we may think we're gonna land into a manual and don't ah can we please turn off the waggle there's gotta be some other control setup nope motion control is all you get why because motion controls are vital to the Skate City experience part of the game's DNA you think it's a gimmick tossed in to take advantage of the motion control craze of the late 2000s don't make me laugh my laugh motion controls are the only way to accurately input the subtle moves necessary to become a skate city hero and you will learn to love them where'd you get the footage you showed just now what oh oh this it's from skate attack a game by the same development team for the PS2 and pal territories it released a year before Skate City Heroes it's got standard controls and features similar content oh I get it I like what you did there did what anyway here in North America we were stuck flipping and bouncing Dallas by lunging our arms around like like lunatics but if the game's creators were so confident as to hinge gameplay on a person's ability to flick and fling a Wiimote It's gotta at least work right well so far it works sometimes at best there's a delayed response between physical Wiimote movements and what my character actually does it's frustrating when you don't see immediate results you're naturally going to try the action again resulting in a move being input multiple times making your character wipe out wow looks like pulling off tricks is clunky and crazy unreliable any other issues so far you mean besides the time our grading manual sound persisted through the next section of the tutorial that sounds terrible what what what part why or how about the way the characters never emote open their mouths or freaking blink at all ever foreign makes dialogue kinda awkward um yeah besides those terrible things you just mentioned any other problems let's see we've got stage assets that just letter through you oh and uh combat ain't great wait for the combat isn't this supposed to be a skateboard Sim that's right because no realistic skateboard simulation is complete without a character awkwardly heaving their body at a robot scarecrow before breaking out in b-boy moves word this is incredibad but that's not all if you wrestle the controls just right you can get some air and lock onto the enemies to dash them out of existence similar to the combat in the Sonic Adventure series great so we're playing Tony Hedgehog's Jet Set Adventure are we through with the tutorial I feel about ready to jump and run to a different game sure we just have to wrap a couple things okay there I think we're finally done how many tutorial missions was that let's see looks like 13 13. holy crap thanks to the heaps of droning text it feels like I've already forgotten 12 of them well I guess it's time to see what's stuck we're heading to the first part of the actual game a level called Old downtown but before we're set loose to ollie everything in sight we've got the games open and cutscene yes this must be old downtown ching and jealous are making the place their playground they're catching massive air grinding slopes busting plenty of moves faces yeah we need to see that again not often an intro showcases how awesome a protagonist is only to have them grate their foreheads off a second later oh oh looks like something's happening over at the triple Kings Casino there's a sparkle Sparkle King's gross frown and the building's evil mascot is free because well they don't say but we can make something up loitering yes because loitering a freshly awoken bad guy introduces himself as virus this Monopoly Man cosplay is bent on playing a twisted game who does he pick to take part in his nefarious plans jalice and Chang he engulfs changing an energy bubble that is clearly very painful as you can tell by the look on his face which is well yeah they still couldn't bother emoting anyone this game but Ching is very uncomfortable right now I assure you this catches Jealous by surprise which honestly shouldn't be surprising at all because you can see she was close by and facing the action in the last shot but surprised she is displaying a person's natural surprised posture and movements oh no virus snags jealous he tells her that in order to save Ching she's gonna have to prove how cool a skater she really is no problem robotic brute materializes three little versions of himself that he calls referees they're tasked with putting jalice's skateboarding skills to the test she must clear their challenges to piece together three parts of a giant game medal virus out we're immediately plopped in front of our first referee who doesn't seem impressed with joust's all push forward go nowhere routine we could start our first challenge but maybe we should check out old downtown you know see what's happening so what's happening NPCs are all kinds of broke hey seem to be barely clinging to reality what's happening amazingly janky character animations come on what's Happening traffic traffic's happening what's happening old downtown just can't contain jalice oh so a lot of problems here huh yeah and that's just what we found free roaming for a couple of minutes anywho maybe we should go back to that first referee and see what we have in terms of actual challenge missions looks like our first mission is all about catching dragonflies we're locked into a small section of the map and need to snap up all the bugs if we you try to leave despite the games if he controls we don't have to do any actual tricks here so this mission is a cakewalk see we scored three out of three mini medals yet these medals based on how well you complete a mission get enough and you unlock new moves or new skaters like we showed you at the character select screen look at those stink particles go host insect hunt the game feeds us a slew of simple tasks we bust out grinds to Snuff out fires balance lengthy manuals to keep a temperature gauge down and later follow another skater a few meters to accomplish a challenge feels like these tasks would have been better housed within the tutorial from earlier or eventually offered missions with a little more substance unfortunately their theming has us really scratching our heads there is a mission where we help virus and his crew deliver packages to his Casino when we finish we're attacked by viruses own underlings for trying to help how does that make sense then there's a mission where we're told by the referee to tear down propaganda posters featuring virus around town so what exactly is going on here because I don't know for helping virus or if we're against him heck all these challenges are coming from virus's own referees so you'd assume we'd always be doing something beneficial for the big fancy robot leader right right we'd love to continue working through the stupidity gymnastics of whether or not we're helping Ching's kidnappers but we're completely blindsided by what happens next we're approached by our Jet Set Mentor from the tutorial the hippie he has a brand new Gadget to help us get through challenges the laser a laser fantastic maybe now we can incinerate enemies from a distance instead of having to fling jealous headfirst into danger ah good Instinct with the whole shooting enemies thing yeah but that's not what the laser does in Skate City Heroes the laser enables you to fly how does that make any sense it don't explain how this new ability does what it does but here's the kicker it doesn't really enable you to fly either not directly at least you're kidding nope the laser ability allows the player to Target Vehicles nearby with the Wiimote once targeted you press a to zip through the air onto what you selected you're not so much flying as you are blinging your character to the top of vehicles around you the mechanic feels reminiscent of oh yeah commandeer vehicles in games like Pursuit Force let's tally this up Skate City Heroes takes artistic cues from jet grind radio has boarding and scoring mechanics like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater layers on Sonic adventures-centric combat and has a vehicle traversal system similar to the non-stop action PSP exclusive Pursuit Force that's right how is this not a better game because all these elements the visuals and mechanics the very way you manipulate the character in game Space none of these things come close to the level of Polish in the games you listed every component is degrees worse than what's being imitated even the vehicle riding absolutely I mean look at first everything's fine you can quickly hop from car to car without issue complete the basic tutorial Mission whatever cool later we get another laser-centric challenge called drone ride and oh drone ride well give it a shot sure okay looks like we need to use our laser to hop onto drones and steer them into a van using the Wiimote simple enough here goes oh oh gosh jeez get back come on dude I have these controls no how's that motion based well I didn't feel just let me try it again how's it feels Shane I'm trying to concentrate man where's the gliding chain sucks it sucks okay it's so freaking mom getting these stupid sauces to fly with any Precision is like pulling teeth Meanwhile we're beginning to learn that our laser ability has its own stupid quirks it often tries to yank our character unsuccessfully through solid objects it takes us way too long to finish this one theoretically simple challenge but eventually we do great was it luck did we learn some kind of Jank compensation skill can't be sure but we do know one thing the vehicle we were pelting with explosive saucers for the mission was our mentors van yeah great way to say thanks to the hippie jalice come on freaking Maniac we continue to work through mechanically messy challenges while the game struggles to remain playable oh my God when we complete a series of referee missions we get a piece of that Giant game medal from the intro and lose a piece of our Humanity but soon we're shrugging through missions in which we send drones careening into civilian traffic our conscience is Blinded By The Game's untameable wemote way acquirement seriously look at this this is a motion controlled racing mission where our characters Tethered to the hippies van [Music] stability even for a second that's it buddy you lose and if that fail State don't sting traffic popping will eventually after completely necessary challenges like collect viruses 10 lost credit cards we have a boss battle it's against a giant jet called Big Ranger in order to defeat big Ranger you need to battle regular enemies until you have an opening to attack it then regular enemies respawn big Ranger changes positions and you do the same thing until you win it's a simple battle that like everything else in the game is dragged out due to Skate City Heroes miserable controls and no we're not just talking we mote wave around it's having a traditional 3D platform style boss in a skateboarding game that doesn't smoothly allow navigation of 3D space because your character's on a board they're almost always stuck moving around with little ability to maneuver on the Fly you'll hop around snapping wildly in the manuals and grinds as you frustratedly fight to orient with the thing you need to fight Precision attacks suck plain and simple taking out big Ranger wraps another round of referee challenges giving us another chunk of that Giant game Metal virus wants us to complete just one more to go working through the second referee's missions we finally gained enough mini medals to unlock a new character let's see who we got hmm Zoe looks more like a pashley if you ask me hey I just noticed we can't play as Ching anymore his characters locked away I guess that makes sense he was kidnapped by virus after all huh seems characters have different skating stats let's see how Zoe plays for a little while sure back to Old downtown where we're prompted by some kind of camera bot to bust a few Moves In order to finish yet another challenge now as unintuitive and unreliable as motion triggered tricks are in this game one thing is done right when you need to perform a specific move the game almost always gives you a visual prompt not easy to see in motion or instantly readable but at least we don't need to memorize button and Wiimote combos for every move what's next looks like we have another challenge Mission over here with uh uh dude how are you here did you escape virus you were shrunk and shoved into a freaking Top Hat Man have you ever tried a wall ride jump to jump over a wall skate towards a wall hold B and press a twice let's go [Music] you're no longer held against your will by Robo Mr Peanut over there wall rides are lower on the priority list let's get out of here okay wall ride jumps are also useful to get more height grind line try this are you kissing the gravity of this situation ching you've convinced me of your talents from now on I'll try to support you whenever I can what happened don't go you're free the game can end the game can end crap what's going on oh oh maybe he's unlocked in the character select now let's check wait what no you're telling me ching Broke Free clawed out of viruses hat hung out in the streets to feed us a tutorial have you ever tried a wall ride jump to jump over a wall return to virus climbed back into his hat and is now sitting in some kind of headwear void waiting to be rescued come on come on you were free Chang you were free I mean it's that or the minds behind Skate City Heroes didn't really think this one through I like my explanation better we shake off the Cameo dumb bomb and get back to work just a few more challenge missions and we get that last piece of viruses big game medal right hopefully then we can end this and get the heck out of old downtown that means more quests like this one or we had to collect three Lucky Seven symbols without breaking our combo not easy when the game barely picks up our angled WeMo positioning to enter a manual we do manage to start a manual it's very easy to tip over while properly positioning your character to collect the next symbol eventually all the wipeouts pay off and the game throws us into another boss battle this time with something called the big spider drone to take this thing out we need to expose and attack weak spots on each of its four legs doesn't sound so bad uh you expose the weak spots by flying drones into each leg the drones that handle like a limp butterfly in a hurricane yeah primony thank you [Music] it took a while but that's it third referee's challenges finished the big game medal is now complete what does Mr virus think of all this you've collected all the metal Parts you surprised me perhaps you're not as puny as you look I still have your body though you won't see him again a very long time yet ready to advance to the next level Next Level haven't we been through enough already guess he doesn't think so virus says we're heading to some area called skate arena okay I guess here we are level two of a game we wish didn't have a level one and it's just a dinky indoor skate park I mean the levels called skate arena so base expectations met but it's a bit of a downer we go from a large futuristic area filled with color life and interactables to this a dull colored confined skatepark that could have been ripped from any early extreme sports title yeah and the missions were given don't make the place any more palatable it repeats a lot of challenges we've already done this time with the difficulty amped up lots of wipeouts not a lot of entertainment honestly the most fun we've had here is when jealous walked into a cycle rapidly bashing her face into a wall this about sums up our experiences with Skate City Heroes fortunately virus has Unleashed only one referee to appease here we're able to complete their challenges by continuously hurling poor chalice around the place until they tell us to stop yeah he ain't kidding we figured out a signature strategy in the skate arena a way to beat any Mission focused on accumulating trick points simply aim the WeMo down spam the jump button and you have yourself a manual combo that perpetually multiplies you earn tons of points while your skater Bops around like a rude what do you get when you complete challenges here yeah if you guessed another level you're correct Iris advances us to the next section waste Factory waste Factory that doesn't mean what I think it means does it if you're thinking it's an area with machines piping and an industrial backdrop and yes it's exactly what you think it means oh great also there's Vats of steamy yellow liquid look at those stink great always our last area it's much larger more interesting to explore and feels like a bustling busy space look we even get more NPCs honestly these folks never get old once again virus releases three referees into the area meaning we've got plenty to do thankfully we've got completely new and original mission objectives like this catch all the fireflies wait aren't those the exact same insect models we caught in the first mission in Old downtown uh no those were dragonflies these are fireflies jeez buddy it's a good thing I'm around to point these things out to you waste Factory does actually introduce new assets though like cargo drones loading units with explosive barrels like previous drones you can use your laser ability to lock onto these and hop aboard for a ride there are even challenge missions where you need to override their controls and aim their descent via Wiimote we try not to cuss so much nowadays later we meet up with our old Mentor the hippie who needs some help cleaning up air mines that are hovering Dangerously in the waste Factory vicinity that means it's time for another mission where we're hauled through the air behind his hover van this time we give his ride a manual boost with the B button a gameplay adjustment that doesn't make this job any easier we don't know why but the motion controls in these segments are implemented in a way that makes them feel like they are always teetering between insane sensitivity and complete unresponsiveness it's jaw-droppingly bad doesn't seem like it should be this hard to have your character make contact with a few slow-moving objects but look at this we're whipping around without a moment's notice and being smeared all over the place it's a chore just stabilizing yourself later on WE complete a mission that introduces us to another new ability called Power Attack a move fueled by Blue item pickups this new offensive ability sends our character careening through the air in an Unstoppable straight line we also unlock a new character her name's Joy yep has a piece that just screams happiness back at the waste Factory we have a challenge Mission focused on draining those canals of that steamy yellow liquid we mentioned before trying to think of how to get urine in there in a way you're in for a challenge how exactly are we supposed to do that by Landing explosive cargo drones on precise Targets in every pool oh oh no with these motion controls yeah foreign [Music] put it simply we were more than ready to move on to the next level of this game long before we completed most missions in the waste Factory if the controls aren't a nightmare and the game isn't glitching out then you're left with nauseatingly repetitious goals like race to location and set amount of time or collect thematically baffling items or attack thing to attack other things or bust out your best game moves in a massive combo that displays your clear passion and reverence for such an awesome skateboarding video game released on Nintendo's Wii named console yeah all that yawn-inducing busy work out of the way and you get to meet the games third boss which is suitingly your second quadrupedal boss encounter boy this game loves doing the same stuff again and again doesn't it we have no idea what this four-pronged Beast is called but we do get one gleaming nugget of information hi there I'm not sure this will help but I've heard this monster has sensitive feet whoa this encounter boils down to what is basically a reverse version of the boss fight from old downtown last the enemy's feet with a regular Dash attack to expose its weak points then hop on a drone and pray the motion control Gods let you jerkley crash it into a sensitive Hooves simple concept simply frustrating to execute seen the cargo drones you know these things move with the dexterity of an intoxicated jellyfish now make the points you need to hit constantly move add explosive mine attacks and pack on homing rockets that preemptively take out your ride not a good time eventually you'll beat it because something something infinite monkeys that infinite typewriter something something foreign time for virus to fling our exhausted skate person into the next World welcome to the base a skateboard accessible research lab in the middle of an ocean probably look you know how this works Cyrus is here a referee is here the ref challenges us to the same tasks we've repeated well almost there is this completely new mission where we need to catch water flies dude we already and and then we listen I got a question sure if I say this is a picture of a cat yep and this is a picture of a dog right then what is this a picture of hippo the base has a glaring feature that makes it the most treacherous course we've played to this point yep namely all the wet blue stuff everywhere because even though we've become more accustomed to the basic controls and know what to expect from referee challenges hostile nature of this open space it ain't no joke just about every Mission has you skating grinding and oh boy Gliding Over every inch of the place so yeah this is probably the most difficult level in Skate City Heroes but you know in its own special way we'd also say it's the most rewarding I mean it's the only level with a broken aircraft asset that does this okay folks say that when you pick up a seashell and hold it to your ear you can still hear her combo multiplier go into this very day as per usual when you beat the Myriad of challenges at the base virus floats in to segue your character to the next torturous Zone we have a suspicion they may have rushed the last bit of viruses dialogue here now you want to progress to the last level you are really hell-bent on free your buddy next but the last level you want and oh wow that was really bad yeah that's awful okay and the name of the last level we want handle rooftops here it is welcome to the final Zone in Skate City Heroes the upper reaches of a futuristic city We're not gonna lie this is a pretty cool location for the last part of the game lots of creative structures here with grind rails and swarms of hover cars to help you get around while we had issues with the bases open concept design leading to plenty of watery plunges this open space offers more ways to avoid tumbles into Oblivion though trust us it still happens but whatever the game's clearly given us its most interesting level in rooftops cool so does that mean it offers better challenge missions nope not really it's mostly the staple go here collect those Dash into that stick but that's not to say we didn't have some standout experiences playing them play Quinn and NPC showed us how to escape down the side of a building we tried it ourselves immediately and shamefully failing the maneuver with the game counted the challenge as complete anyway [Music] thanks we'll take it or the time we were in a tense combat mission on a shielded rooftop and dashed to our next foe only they get pinned between the building and an impenetrable electric barrier yeah it really just kept going probably stings of course they also included more motion controlled vehicle sequences in this level yay here's a one-on-one race where you need to go through Rings while picking up items to fuel your Nitro boost doing this solo at your own pace would already be a pain from the broken motion based inputs but you're not solo you have a competitor with near perfect flight skills better believe we restarted this Mission a lot which brings us to something we can actually laud in Skate City Heroes how it handles restarting challenges see at any moment you can pause the game select restart Challenge and you'll start it again seamlessly yup a quick reset on that mission you've already restarted 136 times maybe the controls will fail in your favor for once it was real helpful when we had to take out this giant blue Robo boss here you have to deal with a handful of henchmen Bots at first no problem with your lock on dash but then comes the hard part a sequence of jumps we really really struggled with good luck navigating all these obstacles to reach that boss spot at the end you need to precisely land your border while grinding and ricocheting off different objects you can always see what's coming next so you're aware of what you need to do but it's hard to judge where your character is in 3D space you don't have a shadow telegraphing your Landing point a big No-No in proper 3D platforming to make matters worse sometimes jumping and ricocheting off objects simply doesn't work the way it needs to look at this time to restart again when we do get to the flying robot boss and Bash it with a Power Attack when we do manage to hit dang it when we do manage to make contact with the freaking boss we need to confront it twice more in different locations which are both thankfully much easier to get through in no time at all we have it running away with its tail between its legs mission accomplished and with that you've completed the last giant medal in the whole game about time for a final confrontation with that Scrooge McDuck looking Ching Napper virus yeah can only imagine what the game's final boss has in store for us with all this wild Power let me guess we do get out at the casino right the the one he freed himself from in the beginning whoa whoa whoa whoa wait a minute no it is is this it are we done it can't be like I don't love this game but you can't end it that way we didn't defeat the villain it wasn't even a lousy freeze frame of Ching reuniting with his friends nothing we just got this oh really that's how you want to wrap a narrative the game equivalent of an irritated parent rushing a bedtime story fine if that's the sentiment we'll Rush too Skate City Heroes is a game whose few good qualities and interesting ideas are overshadowed by a generous dog pile of undercooked mechanics and general Jank a combat system as adventurous and deep as a kiddie pool a jet set look marred by grindingly weird animations broken NPCs and static Expressions a laser traversal tool that forces you into surroundings in pursuit of vehicle navigation that'll make you tuck and roll all this layered over possible Pro Skater moving combo systems that bail under the weight of the game's gimmicky unreliable motion control scheme it's skateboarding Sim meets jump and run meets run and hide if you must absolutely must experience this game do yourself a favor get the pal version on the PS2 or PSP because the Wii version this right here come on Skate City Heroes it's just bad foreign [Music]

Channel: Rerez

Views: 413,432

Keywords: Rerez, Video, Games, Gaming, Gamers, Video Games, Video Game, Wii, Nintendo, Skateboarding, Skateboard, Sports Game

Id: nr-6Vu9-89M

Length: 38min 14sec (2294 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 13 2023