Genre: Skateboarding
Modes: Single-Player
Developer: Agens Games
Publisher: Snowman
Release Date: January 9th 2025
Available On: iOS, macOS, tvOS
Reviewed On: iOS
I have been struggling to write this review of Skate City: New York for the past week. There is a lot to love in this game, and the challenges and gameplay are satisfying to learn. The game can be overwhelming with the amount of different tricks it throws at you from the very beginning, but this only becomes a problem in the later challenge levels. I had fun with this game in the few hours I put into it, but this game alone is not worth investing in for an Apple Arcade subscription. The gameplay does get old very quickly, the challenges do get repetitive the further into them, and the game does not perform well on an iPhone. As a whole, if you are interested and want an arcade-style skateboarding game to play on your phone, there is some fun here, but it does not have much up its sleeve to leave a lasting impression.
NEW YORK NEW YORK
I really like the visual style of the game. The low-poly graphics work well in the game, and this visual style can either leave me feeling positive or extremely negative. A bad example is Ylands, where the low-poly graphics were ugly and distracting. Skate City: New York makes great use of the art style and the different customising options to make your skater look any way you choose. I made my skater look as close as possible to me, and my character came close.
Along with the character models, the lighting of this game is beautiful. The overall visual aesthetic reminded me of Firewatch, especially the game’s sunsets and vivid orange lighting. Most of the challenge levels I played through had this same visual style, but there were some occasions when the game’s environments switched to the daytime. The daytime levels did not look as good as the sunset levels; they were quite plain and not that interesting, but the game, as a whole, makes great use of a low-poly graphical style.
Skate City: New York includes three different gameplay modes: Challenge Mode, Free Skate and Pro Skate. I spent most of my playthrough in Challenge Mode, and this is where you will spend most of your time playing the game. Challenge Mode includes four different sectors: The Basics, New Skills, Amateur and Advances. The Basics teaches you the ropes of the gameplay, performing an Ollie, executing a manual, teaching spins and other basic moves. New Skills is where the game introduces grinds, wall rides and nollies. Amateur levels consist of missions where you need to perform a set number of things like knocking a certain amount of soft drink cans, scaring a certain number of pigeons or escaping a police officer. Finally, Advanced is very similar to Amateur but increases the difficulty to make getting the coveted three out of three stars score even more difficult. I enjoyed playing through Challenge Mode, even if the missions did feel padded out and repetitive. By the time you get to the Amateur level, the game has taught you all the different tricks, and most missions onward require you to get a high enough combo to proceed to the next level. It is still fun, but Skate City: New York loses its edge in the later missions.
Sadly, the other modes of Skate City New York do not offer much variety in terms of gameplay. Free Skate is a free-roaming mode where you get to skate around real-life New York locations like Manhattan. In order to unlock another area, you have to perform a certain amount of tricks. The problem is that this mode ends up feeling like Challenge Mode but nowhere near as fun. You have a set number of tricks to perform, but you can not view what tricks to do unless you pause the game and look at the list of them. The trick guide kills the flow of the skating because you end up pausing the game every few seconds to look at the next trick. Pro Skate is more of the same as well. You will spend most of your time playing Challenge Mode, but you can do a speedy playthrough of Challenge Mode in no more than two hours.
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
I will commend Skate City: New York for its controls because they are responsive and fun to execute. On an iPhone, you hold the phone on its side and press the right side of the screen to push the skateboard to gain speed. You perform tricks with both thumbs by swiping in different directions on the screen. There are eight tricks you can do with your left thumb and eight tricks with your right thumb. To do a 180° spin, you have to press the upper half of the phone screen while your character is in the air. You execute grinds by performing any trick as you approach a handrail, which makes a balance metre appear. The longer you maintain your balance, the higher your combo score will be. When you get to the end of a rail, you perform another trick to land back on the ground. Wall rides are done by performing an ollie as you approach a wall and then holding your thumb against the wall until your character lands back on the ground.
The biggest problem with Skate City: New York is how overwhelming the game is as a whole. When it comes to Challenge Mode, you have to perform so many different tricks and remember in which direction to swipe a certain thumb to perform a trick, and it makes the game feel very overwhelming and stressful. There is a Training Mode in the game where you can practise different tricks and try to remember which thumb placement executes a certain trick. The Training Mode is a good idea, but it does not serve the missions well. The problem is that there is no way to view the game’s controls whilst on a mission. There is no controller layout like there is on most console games. Yes, you can briefly see what trick you will do if you hold your thumb in a specific direction, and it makes the gameplay go into slow motion, but it still does not give you enough time to execute the trick efficiently. The overwhelming gameplay is worse when you look at the game’s frame rate, which likes to drop massively every couple of missions. When the game runs well, it is clearly at 60fps, but when it falls, it is like looking at a slideshow presentation. These frame drops happened to me every second time I loaded up a mission. If it only happened once or twice, it would not be a huge issue, but when the game insists on precise button inputs, the frame rate can make the game feel borderline unplayable in a number of areas.
SKATE CITY: NEW YORK REVIEW: VERDICT
In the early stages, Skate City: New York is a fun skateboarding game that feels satisfying when you get the tricks right. The visual style is great, especially the lighting, and the customisation options are extensive. Sadly, the game suffers in its additional modes and lacks replayability. Add on some gameplay frustrations and the poor frame rate, and Skate City: New York is a disappointing Apple Arcade title that does not have much to draw in fans of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Skate, or any enthusiasts of the sport.
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