- Publisher: Easy Day Studios Pty Ltd
- Release Date: Jul 28, 2020
- Also On: PC, Switch, Xbox One
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Playstation Official Magazine UKAug 22, 2020We’re in love with the unique control system, but the longterm appeal of the launch version is questionable. If/when more features arrive to fill in the gaps, it’ll be an essential purchase. [Issue#179, p.74]
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Aug 11, 2020Today, the skateboarding genre seems to be living a renaissance: Tony Hawk will return, one day there will be Skate 4, and Skater XL is now here and, against all odds, stands out by its own merits, with an offer that speaks to a very specific audience.
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Aug 3, 2020Skater XL softens some of the more technical aspects of the sport, but empowers players with the ability to pull off stylish tricks with a swish of the analogue sticks. Even with a lack of content and polish, Skater XL stands on its own four wheels in a soon-to-be-crowded marketplace, providing players with an experience that prioritises fun over simulation.
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Aug 2, 2020For those willing to put in the time and effort (along with any of the glitches), Skater XL is a fun experience that skateboarding fans can enjoy - a statement that is even truer for those who also happen to be content creators, as some players out there are already putting together some pretty slick skate video-quality clips… likely after having plenty of their own Kerry Getz moments left on the cutting room floor.
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Aug 2, 2020Skater XL is definitely going to be a polarising game for some – the intuitive and deep control methods coupled with the expansive open-world environment make for a great time to just chill out and skate around, but some players may miss the ‘action’ of the game or feeling a necessity to reach a goal. While challenges will keep you going to better yourself, some may be turned off by the limited game modes and replayability. All in all, Easy Day Studios have crafted a truly interesting skateboarding experience that gives players the ability to skate without leaving their home.
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Aug 5, 2020Skater XL is an unparalleled representation of skateboarding. It's all about practice, timing, and creativity. You are the only indicator. As a game, Skater XL disappoints: technically it is not that great and the number of available locations is very limited. The picture that Skater XL paints of the skate culture is also quite one-sided in 2020.
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Aug 5, 2020Skater XL is a strong proof of concept but it’s currently incomplete. It has successfully created a physics-based control system that is both complex and rewarding. This will appeal to skaters as it’s the closest that video games have got to simulating the sport, however, Easy Days Studios has failed to gamify the experience. With more objectives, a story, voice acting and various modes, this could have been the skating title that gamers have been waiting for. Although post-launch content has been promised, many may have bailed before then.
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Sep 14, 2020Games generally work when the player is either presented with goals to reach or a world to explore, but Skater XL doesn't provide enough of either to be a fulfilling experience.
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Sep 1, 2020Easy Days Studios strove to achieve a great and realistic control system for Skater XL, and they nailed it. On the way to geting it, though, they forgot to build a proper and fun game around it.
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Aug 21, 2020A skating game never had better and more realistic controls. Unfortunately, the world you're skating in feels bare-bones and often just empty. The lack of an overarching goal turns playing into a chore after a while. It's a real shame, because Skater XL's actual gameplay shows a lot of promise.
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Aug 12, 2020While offering a precise and deep board control system - far from the simplifications seen in other exponents of videogame skateboarding - Skater XL does not assign a real purpose to the player.
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Aug 11, 2020Skater XL is one of the most faithful renditions of skating in videogames, with a complex, realistic, handling that becomes really satisfactory once you overcome its learning curve. But the lack of polish, and the notable absence of content, make this a game that only the truest skating fans will manage to continue enjoying beyond the first hours.
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Aug 4, 2020Skater XL has a mid-budget price point and comes from a small indie outfit from which you wouldn’t expect triple-A polish and heft. It also has a substantial community busy designing mods and items for it, too. But unless you’re a truly fanatical skateboarder in real-life, your most likely reaction to buying it and booting it up is likely to be: ‘Is that it?’. It’s an exemplary control system in search of a game.
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Jul 30, 2020Skater XL is the most realistic skateboarding simulator we've ever seen, but also the hardest. If you love skateboarding you'll probably enjoy it a lot (specially if you skate in real life), but if you don't, it's difficulty and barebones content won't seduce you.
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Jul 29, 2020First representative of a lost genre in years, Skater XL will clearly disappoint those who hopes for dense content. Clearly focused on its core simulation mechanics, the game offers a true experience of what skating might feel, but lacks on every other level, with very few stages, a meagre soundtrack and many technical flaws.
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Aug 20, 2020Freeskate indie game with an accessible trick system. The lack of story or unlockables as well as the few locations give the impression that it is unfinished.
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Aug 6, 2020Skater XL fills a niche for skate fans who can have the patience to discover fun spots and come up with tricks and lines themselves, just like real skating. But due to its empty world, the lack of challenging content and the fact that community mods are needed to really speak of realism, the console version of Skater XL in particular is not worth its price tag.
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Jul 29, 2020To say that Skater XL's finish leaves something to be desired is an understatement.
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Aug 7, 2020In its current state, Skater XL is nothing more than an elaborate tech demo to show its gameplay potential. What's actually missing is the game itself.
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Aug 13, 2020Skater XL feels incomplete. There's not a lot of content, and the game is lacking a personality, a vibe to engage the player. In a year that has Skate coming to mobile, the Pro Skater games being re-released (again), and Session also working its way through Early Access, you should hold off on Skater XL.
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Aug 7, 2020Once you overcome Skater XL’s learning curve there’s some fun board-based entertainment to be had here. But this is a lightweight package with subpar presentation, and unless you’re so deep into skater culture that you absolutely need a simulation for your PS4, we’d recommend either waiting for this to be updated – or pre-ordering Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 instead.
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Aug 5, 2020The problem is that while the game's ambitions are "XL," there's nothing "XL" about the full package. It feels like there are critical features missing, like the ability to play with friends or the ability to do anything with your skills beyond just perform them for yourself over and over. It's a slog once you've mastered these tricks and there's nothing left to do. It's even worse if you don't have the patience to learn, because at that point, there's literally nothing this game has to offer you. And given that the PS4 version of the game had performance hitches at various points, I can envision people's patience wearing thin quickly.
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Aug 3, 2020Skater XL has some great trick animations that prove the developer understands the sport and brought that experience to the video game medium. Sadly, nothing else holds up as the environments and playability fall apart the moment you realize there’s nothing to do. The game excels for those who enjoy creating their own fun, but for the price point, I cannot recommend a game that still feels like it’s in Early Access after game crashes and numerous bugs. Anyway, at least the soundtrack is dope.
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Aug 1, 2020I am a massive skateboarding game fan and wanted to love this game. Skater XL just does not have enough content to remain enjoyable for very long. The levels, characters and gameplay are dull and I find it very hard to get excited about it. I think it perhaps could be a good game in the future but I do not have that long to wait. Yes, it does have a unique control system and pulling off tricks is fun but we need more than that, as that can only take you so far. Move on people, there's little to see here.
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Jul 31, 2020Skater XL has promise as a platform but on console it still feels a bit too much like a prototype.
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Aug 11, 2020Skater XL is little more than a technical demo, a draft game with a control system with good potential.
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Aug 3, 2020Despite a legitimately innovative and satisfying control and trick system, Skater XL just feels incomplete.
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Jul 30, 2020What Skater XL does well is make you obsess over an 8-set of stairs, or return again and again to a simple curb. You will keep going back to line up the perfect angle, the exact spot to crouch into an ollie, tre flip and land a crooked grind. That’s great, that’s street skating in its essence, and it’s an achievement to capture that. But outside of that microcosm, as soon as you pan out, it steps on its own shoelaces and stumbles into a bush.
| This publication does not provide a score for their reviews. | |
| This publication has not posted a final review score yet. | |
| These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation. | |
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Aug 5, 2020Skater XL comes at skateboarding from the angle that it’s extremely important. It’s serious, and in cutting out the extraneous pieces and paring the mechanics down to the most basic elements of real skateboarding, they try to get the player to take it as seriously as they can. But in my heart of hearts, I think that a good skateboarding game should feel like skateboarding culture. It should be a little destructive. It should be goofy, and the things that seem so important to the culture should look absolutely goofy in 10 years. It’s as important as you make it, as Boulala says, and my ideal skateboarding game treats it as slightly less important. By treating it with less importance, we might get a bigger world of possible tricks and ways of playing with a skateboard. That game would be closer to what I love about skateboarding.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 38 out of 106
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Mixed: 25 out of 106
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Negative: 43 out of 106
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Jul 30, 2020
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Jul 30, 2020
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Jul 30, 2020