I gotta admit, I was initially lukewarm on Skater XL. I felt that, in a lot of ways (those being important ways), this was kind of a barebones skateboarding sim.
I mean, when was the last time you a played a game where you didn’t even think about saving before you turned it off, auto-save or otherwise? Skater XL is that game for me. I have no fear of losing all my progress, because there really is no progress in Skater XL — nothing consequential, at least.
But considering I spent $40 on this dang game, I was committed to spending at least a few more hours with it — bare minimum — to see if it wouldn’t win me over.
And boy howdy, am I thankful that I gave it another chance.
Once I started to approach this as if I were a real-life skater (for the record, I have, thus far, failed to be a skater in real life), instead of some combo-chaining, cover-of-a-magazine fantasy trip, it really started to gel.
And after spending a ridiculous amount of time figuring out the incredibly counterintuitive, finicky film editor, I managed to make a pretty okay little skate video. (For the record, there are still a few design implementations I find baffling.)
I also produced the accompanying music track, “Going Down: (FutureRobots)” under my stage name JulianWhatThe. If you feel so inclined, you can also check out some of my other songs and instrumentals.
