New images: EA’s Skate

With Skate, Electronic Arts has quite a long legacy to contend with.

On the surface, the game has visuals that trump its competitor, even if they are looking a bit plastic and lifeless. It does share a similar look to EAs other recent games, NBA Street: Homecourt and Def Jam: Icons — it’s a photo-realistic, gritty world where sweat drips from the skin at the slightest hint of action. The end result has been nothing short of breathtaking in action.

But looks aren’t everything, and it’s the controls that the team at EA Black Box intend to reinvent. Prepare yourself for analog stick movements that are suppose to “recreate the feel of real motion,” like that found in pretty much every other EA game these days (starting with Fight Night). Still, Neversoft set the template for skating games with their Tony Hawk series. Everything from the skating in Bully to Aggressive Inline have liberally ripped off the game’s core mechanics because they work so well and have become the accepted vocabulary of skating video games.

Are you prepared to learn Skate‘s new language?