Skate 2 and RE 5.

On Sunday I bought Skate 2. I never played the first one, and I've never played any Tony Hawk, so I don't have any hang-ups as far as the controls are concerned. I'm finding that the right analog stick works great for pulling off tricks, and I'm having a lot more fun than I ever thought I would with a skateboarding game. I don't usually play any sports games besides the occasional racing game, but I watched someone play the first Skate over the weekend and I thought I'd give it a try. I actually noticed something once I started playing -- Pure took a lot from the control scheme used in Skate. It's pretty much the same setup for doing tricks in both games. Right stick, plus a trigger and a face button do all the different moves available. I'm not complaining, since I had a lot of fun with Pure, and the controls felt spot-on. The same goes for Skate 2 so far, and hopefully I can find the time to finish it before the mini-onslaught of games coming out starting next month.


The other thing I've been playing the past two nights is the RE 5 demo. The short of it is that the game is pretty much what I expected. I played through RE 4 four times, so I like to consider myself an expert on its nuances. RE 5, at least from the demo, seems to have improved on several aspects of its predecessor -- namely you have a bit more mobility(more on that in a moment), the inventory screen is much more elegant now, and the addition of co-op(with another person or with just the AI) looks like its going to work really well. As far as movement is concerned, I recognize the game is a bit behind the times. It's sometimes frustrating to have to stop aiming and run away just to get a better shot at someone, instead of simply moving while shooting. I understand this, but at the same time the restrictions imposed on you make it more challenging and tense when you have a lot going on. However, if you find yourself cornered in a small space, it can be really tricky to reposition. The elegance of the inventory system, ironically, looks to be borrowed from Dead Space. That's pretty fucking funny to me, but cribbing from a game that cribbed from yours is something a lot of other developers should do. Too bad they didn't do the same with movement. Anyways, instead of pausing the game to look at it, your slots pop up over the screen while the action continues. You can map different items to the d-pad so you don't always have to scroll through a bunch of crap while a zombie is munching on your face, which is nice. Other than that, it's basically RE 4, but it looks damn good and it has online co-op. Like I said, pretty much what I expected, and also basically what I wanted out of it.