Pretty much the only thing that didn't happen was Hawk accusing EA of saying skateboarding wasn't a real sport.
But guess what happened. Skate outsold its rival Hawk game (Tony Hawk's Proving Ground) 2 to 1, and Neversoft had to resort to motion sensing gimmicks (Downhill Jam) and oversized controls (Ride) to gain any press for the next Hawk game. The EA Blackbox team still communicates with the online community. When walking and glitching was shown to be an issue in Skate 2, the devs put a patch out within a couple months. They JUST released some DLC for the 2009 Maloof Money Cup park about a month ago. When Skate fans wanted some areas from the first Skate in Skate 2, EA delivered with some more DLC. There are online teams that use the replay editor to make some seriously nice videos that rival some real productions.
Skateboarders and fans were clamoring for more realism in Hawk games since the first Tony Hawk's Underground. Instead, NS gave you a platformer-on-skateboards. If THQ decides UFC isn't worth the effort to add more submissions, allow strikes to do some actual damage (leg kicks and body shots do nothing of consequence), change the submission system to something that won't ruin a controller, tweak the ground game to stop stick-hugging, give more standing defensive options than "stand and block or stand and try to catch a strike", etc, I have the feeling THQ and UFC may just go the way Hawk games are now.
Point being, don't let the fact that EA is handling a game with no "big names" in it blind you to it potentially being awesome. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater has been around since 1998, and built itself (at first) on being the best skateboarding game around. But as Neversoft started being complacent, and pissed away some great talent that wanted to sign, it left the door wide open for competition to take over. And that's what EA came and did. It used people who actually did what they talked about to develop the game (skaters then, people who actually practice BJJ and MMA here) to make the most complete, thorough experience available. And Hawk is stuck playing catch up.
tl;dr: EA's been in this spot before and came through with flying colors. Discuss.
EDIT (over a year later :) ): With the advent of the CAF *****fests popping up here and there, I'd like to take a minute to remind everyone that Skate's CAS was EXTREMELY limited. About 10 hairstyles, 4 faces, 3 body types, and 3 preset skating styles. You had very little choice in anything outside of your clothing and your board. But the gameplay and online itself was so good that it really didn't matter.
|||Great post man!!!|||I concur great post.|||This is definitely a great post.
I would go so far to say EA had an unfair advantage when they made skate. Not in a bad way tho. They had the opportunity to see what the Tony Hawk series was doing wrong and what they were doing right. They worked on gameplay first and that was their main focus at least that is how i saw it and felt when playing skate. It seemed like in the back burner was who they were going to bring into the game. When i worked for EA the Skate team sent out a survey/questionnaire to all the employees a week after release asking for people to tell them what they can improve upon for Skate 2. The Skate team took a lot of time and effort to focus on gameplay.
I think EA is going to do this with EA MMA. They have the opportunity to see all the wrongs (there are a lot of them) that Undisputed has and EA can now fix those and improve on the things Undisputed did well.|||What can I say, I kinda forgot about Skate but that is the best example of how capable EA is of putting out a great game when the odds are not really on their side.
I can only hope that happens with EA MMA aswell, I honestly hope we will see something soon. I know actual gameplay vids are months away, but damn am I looking forward to this game.
|||In the end its all about the gameplay and depth
Who knew in skate not doing triple backflips would be fun.......... who knew simple stuff would be so much fun.|||great thread! I really hope that EA takes note of what the community wants more so than whats new and really neat. I felt Skate1 was an amazing game that was well thought out and executed extremely well. You can tell they spent most of the time getting the skating perfect. Skate2 on the other hand, it seemed that BB just took a couple of ideas from the community (expanded CaS, filmer pack) but they had in mind all these new ideas (movable objects, online graphic editor, HOM, etc) that NO ONE in the community ever mentioned. It ruined the game IMO, they should have just worked the walking and made it as perfect as the skating from the 1st one. Instead we got a game with a bunch of glitchy halfcocked functions.
Sorry about the rant. I just want this game to be as good as possible, and the way to do that is listening to the consumers.|||
great thread! I really hope that EA takes note of what the community wants more so than whats new and really neat. I felt Skate1 was an amazing game that was well thought out and executed extremely well. You can tell they spent most of the time getting the skating perfect. Skate2 on the other hand, it seemed that BB just took a couple of ideas from the community (expanded CaS, filmer pack) but they had in mind all these new ideas (movable objects, online graphic editor, HOM, etc) that NO ONE in the community ever mentioned. It ruined the game IMO, they should have just worked the walking and made it as perfect as the skating from the 1st one. Instead we got a game with a bunch of glitchy halfcocked functions.
Sorry about the rant. I just want this game to be as good as possible, and the way to do that is listening to the consumers.
Skate 2 was actually a good game in my opinion the things they added were awesome.... it's a sequal of coarse so it loses its originality but I wouldn't rate it to much lower then the first one.|||Fantastic post! EA is the number 1 company for sports games for a reason. They know what they are doing and they are doing it really good.|||wow its really weird i posted the same thing on the undisputed forum a while back! but yes great post, and if ea can deliver like they did with SKATE this game will be unreal, and has the potential to make strikeforce a huge promotion, like it did with the skaters in SKATE... dana's worst nightmare may come true next yr, he may actually have some competition lol|||I agree! Look at UFC Undisputed 2009, full of the popular UFC MMA fighters but what happened? At first, the gameplay was alright, after playing more and more you'd start noticing those lacking details. Then you have the bugs and a good number of glitches. The gameplay began to suffer and the what could be great strategies for fighting became exploits and were abused. It destroyed everything, especially the developer's credibility. At the end of the day, a game worth playing is worth a sequel therefore, people will anticipate the next series because they are satisfied with what they have for now.
I have no craving for UFC anymore, and would rather wait for EA MMA knowing that they already tested out the waters by the mistakes of THQ and Yuke's. I am more willing to shell out money for a good gameplay even with few popular fighters than to play some popular fighters with poor gameplay anytime! Come on EA Devs! Show them, and us what you got! I'm bettin' on your side, you have my faith!|||This just occurred to me.
The first in-game footage of Skate a lot of people saw was on MTV's "Rob & Big", when Rob went to the studios and did mo-cap. If EA signs Mayhem Miller, they could use "Bully Beatdown" as a major promo platform for the game. Hell, they could use the CAF feature to "simulate" or "predict" the fights on the show as a joke, or seriously (especially if the AI is great) on Strikeforce/DREAM broadcasts.
Just thought I'd put that out there.|||With the demo out, I thought I'd bump this for some more discussion.
Does anyone feel that EA MMA has the potential to be the Skate to UFC's Tony Hawk?|||i remember watching the new episode of rob and big and them playing it,i was a active skater then and i went bolistic!i was literally at home praticing on my controller before anything about the game was released,SKATE is a perfect example,i just hope that MMA 3 isnt as bad as SKATE 3 all they added was darkslides(im wrong),but the mechanics make you feel like "yes!!i just 360 flipped that 20set",same with MMA,your not just pushing Y/X hoping it throws the strike you want,if im out of range i want to jab or hook if im in range i wanna jab,jab,uppercut i can...
not uppercut,uppercut,uppercut get out range hook...
Tony Hawk which i loved before skate came out,takes no skill,on SKATE....its like a real skate session you dont land tricks 1st T,you have to set a marker down and keep trying til you land it and then its just as rewarding as reality..
great comparison couldnt have said it better myself
long live
EA MMA
SKATE!!!!!|||Defiantly. That is a very good point to. I feel that this game is going to be very tight/smooth and I know I'm going to enjoy it based solely off the demo. That being said I believe the could immensely improve on the ideas behind this game.
I loved the first Skate and played it non-stop. When Skate 2 came out I was having anxiety attacks cause I was anticipating it so much. When I finally got to play Skate 2, I called into work the next day.
Based on the improvements they made (I know its arguable, just my opinion though) I couldn’t put the second game down. I feel like this is what MMA is going to be like, as much as I’m going to love the first one, the second one (crossed fingers that there will be one) will surpass it soooo much, based off of the communities responds/idea/criticisms.
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