After waiting almost TWO MONTHS, and with Royal Mail losing the first delivery of this game, it finally arrived today. So I played it a bit. It’s pretty good. The graphics are a lot like Yoshi’s Island on the SNES, and it’s all cute and bouncy and everything. I’ve played through all of World 1 up to the boss, Petey Pihrana. Who you have to kill in an almost identical way to in Super Mario Sunshine. Didn’t manage to kill …
Just a quick go online (mainly to see if I really did appear in the “whos online” bit of www.nintendowifi.co.uk – I didn’t), and played a Rivals game. I don’t know how it calculates the “rival-ity” of the people you play, but all three had 170+ wins, and less than 10 losses each. Rubbish. As in, I was. Scraped joint second, somehow, but only through luck in getting the right weapons at the right times. Pah.
SUPARBEST! The main levels were actually very easy. Alarmingly easy, especially as I’m sure I found it frustratingly hard when I played it last year. There were a few difficult goals to get, such as the get-all-the-cameras one in Moscow, and a skitching one in San Diego, but on the whole they were pretty easy. Moscow was a bit odd though, what with the Skate Theft Auto girl-collection car bit, and the Tony Hawk’s Splinter Cell goal, which was totally …
Well, after completing the DS game earlier, I decided to go back to this, which I’d previously stopped playing after reaching Tampa some 15 months ago. And it was alarmingly easy to just drop back into after all this time. Finished off Tampa, and made a start on San Diego after it, mainly just bumping up stats as I’d just been made an “Am”.
After managing some of the previously impossible goals, I had The Warehouse unlocked, and completed some of the goals in there. That’s all the levels unlocked now, so… Went back to Story Mode. And ripped through all of the rest of it! Bought all the bits for the Warehouse, earned a stack of money, and made the skate video. And won the game! Hurrah!
I moved onto the next few levels instead of struggling with the few remaining goals at Vans. The next level was pretty hard too, and there’s no way in hell I can get the COMBO letters, nor any of the higher scores. And I can’t even see the Secret Tape, let alone collect it. There’s another goal where I have to do tricks through some signs. Two of the signs say “GRIND”, so I grind through and get them, no …
I can’t understand why I’m crap at this game. I used to be pretty good at Pro Skater on other formats, but I just can’t get high scores in this one. As well my inability to revert-manual, I find you lose momentum on the manuals far too quickly, meaning you can’t string more than a couple of verts together in a combo. Or at least, not one after another. Anyway, I completed a few more goals, but am stuck in …
Played a fair bit of Story Mode this evening, and worked my way past the first two levels. It seems a lot easier than Classic Mode so far. Also tried to bump up my rankings a bit, but in the end only managed to lengthen my Lip Trick time (to 31 seconds). Did boost my stats a bit though too, but Air and Ollie are woefully low. I can’t do the “8 grab tricks in one combo” type requirements, as …
High score rackage! Almost! I’ve been trying to bump up my scores and stats to improve my standings in my Skate Crew’s scoretables. I’ve only been trying on Hollywood, but I’m now 5th for the Run Score, and 1st for the longest grind of 33 seconds. That even puts me 52nd in the Global Grind Scores for that level too, which is pretty good going.
It’s Super Decal Fighter II Turbo today! Make two Graffiti “tags”: Great, no? They’re Horace from off of Horace Goes Skiing, and the Yellow Castle from off of Adventure on the Atari 2600. Marvellous. I also managed some deck art too: Yes! It’s the Sinclair rainbow!
Just knocking up my “Sk8 Crew” stats a bit today on this. I’m about 4th or 5th for overall score on Hollywood. Hurrah! Sadly, I’m in the bottom three for almost every other stat going. Boo! You can see my crew here, and my personal stats here. If you so wish.
Although I’d previously finished the game, I managed to unlock the rest of the Retro Cups in Mirror Mode today, and then win those too. Got an A rank and a Star rank for the Leaf and Lightning Cups respectively. I can now choose any kart for any character. Not really sure what advantage that gives me, but anyway.
And completed Broadway… The secret tape was a real pain to get to though. Thankfully, on the next level (Downtown), I picked the the tape entirely by accident, so I won’t need to struggle to find it there! Also picked up the COMBO letters and completed a few scores on Downtown.
Finished off all the challenges in Hollywood on Classic Mode, and had a bit of a skate around there before moving on to the next level – Broadway. I really can’t get the land-revert-manual controls working reliably, which made the 300,000 point Sick Score on Broadway a bit difficult. I’m sure it’s harder to time than on the console versions of Tony Hawk’s. Anyway, I managed to do all the scores, and the other challenges bar the secret tape (which …
Hmm. I just did the second Retro Cup on Mirror Mode, and came first overall. For some reason, it didn’t unlock the next Cup as I’d expected it to. Which means I’ve run out of Cups to play. Why hasn’t it opened up any more? I know I have a B rank on the Cup I did today, but surely that shouldn’t make any difference?