Hey, so I got Skate 2 for my birthday and I gotta say, I love it. It's weird, I have no interest in real skateboarding whatsoever yet I've loved skateboarding sims for as long as I can remember, dating back to the original TH Pro Skater.

Anyways I wasn't sure if Skate 2 could topple Skate 1 as my favourite boarding ame but it far exceeded my expectations, the moves list is even larger and the controls even more refined. For anyone who is a Skate virgin, you will struggle to grasp the controls, but once you have them down, you'll never look back.

The grapics and art style are also a huge step forward, Skate 2 uses a water colour style which looks just beautiful in HD, really crisp and colourful.

I'm only a small way into Skate 2 but I'm already enjoying my stay in San Van, the missions are more varied and enjoyable than it's predecessor, although I must confess that I've been getting stuck on the odd mission due to my terrible reaction times lol. There are several new additions to the gameplay, you can now get off your board which opens up a whole new feeling of freedom, you can climb obstacles to reach a good skate spot or even move and manipulate their position to create a skate spot.

The game has trophies although I'm kinda cutting back on whoring for a while as I was rushing through games and often missing out on their charm, not so with Skate 2 I'm gonna do everything on offer before I move on.

I haven't played a great deal of online but from what I've sampled is great fun, there's a wide array of events on offer including the hilarious hall of meat contests.You can also create and upload spots which can be 'owned' if another user beats your original score. In addition to this you can upload videos and photos of your skating onto EA's servers as well as view and rate other users content.

All in all Skate 2 is a brilliant game and for me the best skating sim ever made, the graphics, gameplay and mechanics of the game are second to none, this is a must buy for fans of the previous game as it's improved on a seemingly perfect formula. To conclude, I'd give Skate 2 an 8.9/10, I knocked it down a little bit due to the occasional difficulty spikes and the sometimes unhelpful camera, apart from that...Skate is great :D