The Tony Hawk's series, from Pro Skater to Project 8, has attained a rare status in gaming. It's practically a household name and nearly every gamer from casual to hardcore has at least tried their hand at the series. It's pretty much been the go-to game for skateboarding fans for a long time now, and that makes it a difficult target to take down. EA's skate is looking to take the title from the long-standing giant - but does it have enough fresh new tricks up its sleeves to pull it off?

The first thing you'll notice about skate is that the controls are completely unlike any skating game you've ever played before. Whereas the Tony Hawk series has always relied on button pressing sequences and combos to perform tricks, skate essentially only requires the use of the analog sticks. The right analog stick is mapped in a way that should feel familiar to anyone who's spent a good deal of time on a skateboard. Pulling down on the right stick leans you back on the board while pushing forward leans you forward, which is pretty simple and serves as a very intuitive system. Tricks are performed by combinations of forward and back movements, just like they are on a skateboard. For example, you'll pull down and then push up to about 9:00 on the right stick to do a kickflip (assuming you're in normal stance), or pull down and then slide the stick around to 3:00 to do a shuv-it. There are of course fakie and nollie tricks as well, with a grand total of thirty-eight flip tricks to perform.

While you can ride around the huge, fictional city of San Vanelona and have a fabulous time while doing so, there are also plenty of missions to undertake, such as the Photo and Video shoots where you have to perform a certain trick or score a certain amount of points. Or how about participating in the X-Games and going down a towering ramp on your way to stardom - or a broken face? The missions are usually fun and you can play S.K.A.T.E. (basically Skating's version of Basketball's Horse) with your homies or rivals, and if you aren't feeling that, you can just ride around. No part of the city is blocked off, just like real life, and you can skate anywhere. One drawback though is that the game may be too realistic for its own good at times; it does get a little bothersome when you have to ollie over every single curb or you're down, or when you think that little old lady will go walk fast enough so that you can slide by her, but she doesn't, or vice versa with a car, which is far more painful to hit than a little old lady (unless of course she's armed with a handbag full of rocks!)

You perform grabs using the triggers, which represent each hand, and you can tweak them with the right stick. Grinds and manuals also become an essential part of your arsenal if you hope to make it to the end of the game, which again are not controlled by just a button. You must ollie straight up and hope that your board lines up with the curb. All the tricks look truly amazing with some fantastically fluid and realistic animation for the skaters and their clothes. It seems as though, with enough practice, you could actually pull off a trick that looks this cool in real life - something that really can't be said about the Tony Hawk's series! Once you get the hang of it, the control system works beautifully, but you might get a little frustrated when you first begin to play - and if you bail out, be ready to see a color-coated skeleton with all the bones you've broken and bruised! The character customization is rather limited and feels clunky, but it's passable and the amount of clothing and gear available is impressive, although you'll buy everything you want and still find yourself with tons of cash left over.

Some of you may be surprised to hear that your character never increases or decreases in skill throughout the course of the game. Instead you just have to master the unique controls to perform bigger and better tricks. Once you've got the whole trickbook mastered you can play with a great degree of style, and that's when the video editor comes into play. At any time within thirty seconds after pulling a cool trick you can pause the game and go into a replay editor in order to save your trick for posterity. The game touts 'Without footage, it's fiction' so you can upload up to three videos and five pictures to EA's skate site in order to back up your message board claims to fame. This feature works well and does what it promises, although there are some aspects that seem to be lacking a little. For example, minimal camera and speed control can help to make some cool stuff, but not as much as full manual control could have done.

The camera in the game is another place where skate attempts some innovation. When you're riding, the view of the action is like a skateboarding video, almost as though there's a dog trotting alongside you with a video camera on its head. The camera works great, for the most part, adding to the realism of the experience. However, it does mean that sometimes you might not be able to see things like curbs or people, which is important, because if you them then you're going down! The realism present in the gameplay, while taking the genre in a whole new direction, does hold it back in some ways. There's a great degree of variety available in the tricks, but there's no customization and it seems like a number of staple tricks are missing. There are plenty of moments of frustration too, when little obstacles like curbs or stairs get in your way, making me wish that I could pick up the board and walk around. Additionally, the difficulty in the learning curve likely means that this game isn't for everyone. As an aside, however, I've played skate with numerous friends who are certainly not hardcore gamers and literally everyone who's experienced it has loved it and been able to achieve some level of tricks.

As far as the presentation goes, the graphics and audio are both awesome. The city of San Vanelona is very well designed, so there are numerous areas to visit that make it a street skater's dream. You can tear it up on the modern art outside the Art Museum or visit the district that's basically just one big, downhill fiesta, where you really get a sense of speed and true satisfaction when you land a really rad trick. There are a lot of big towers that loom over you, making the city feel like a big place, while the cars move realistically and it will impress you when you see a Firebird whizzing past you a lot faster than those mini-vans go. There are also a lot of other skaters around the city and it seems like there are more than there should be. Not many towns have as many skaters out on the streets at one given time as San Vanelona, but hey, that's probably what they said about New York City and the amount of people wearing suits!

In the background you can hear the everyday bustle of car engines, people talking and the amazing sound of your skateboard rolling on whatever surface you're shredding. The developers have captured the sound of the board so perfectly that I want to play the game all day just to hear it! And on the music front, there's a great mix bands like The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Cheap Trick, The White Stripes and David Bowie, among many more.

The online modes feel a little light, but there's still some fun to be had. The best of them is the Freeskate mode, where you can choose a zone and simply cruise around with your friends on Xbox Live. You'll see some serious lag at times, but it seems to resolve itself fairly promptly by automatically changing hosts.

skate is more than worth checking out for any fan of skateboarding games, providing an experience like no other and one that you won't soon forget. You won't be pulling off the crazy, impossible stunts to be found in Tony Hawk's, but it's equally - if not more - fun to pull off something really technically challenging in skate. With a little patience and perseverance, this game can provide a really great experience that, once it's got you hooked, will keep you skateboarding around for a long time to come.

Reviewed by James Fanciullo for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).