Session: Skate Sim Review - The Final Verdict 

The fact that he's pushing mongo tells you everything you need to know about this review.

Its a bit shame that people who havent skated in real life are not gonna really appreciate all nuances and depth this game has. Its basically game for skaters.

Ur problem with the close camera is fixed with the camera settings close, mid and far. Crazy how if u look in the settings u can change things to make it more fun and comfortable for the player.

ouch. imagine barely playing, not looking into settings and making a review like this. what a joke.

You can change how close the camera is in the options. There is a deeper trick list. You can adjust so many settings for your controls AND your board it’s kinda unreal. The tricks are accurate. ALL the spots in the cities are real spots. The game was made by 12 people at the start. Nothing else compares to this.

Ive always said if your not a skater in real life it's difficult to give a accurate review score for a skateboard simulator.This is only the second real skate Simulator ever released. As a skater whose had hundreds of skater xl hours behind the thumb, Session gets a 7.5 in my book and future updates going to better the whole experience for sure.

Bruh “arenas” “based on real spots”. Dude the maps in the game are 100% real locations that they tried to recreate 1:1 as much as possible. It would have probably helped if you actually did some research about skating and it’s culture before doing this review.

This dude had to resort to using pre-made gameplay clips cuz he didn't bother learning the game enough to showcase his own. Wow.

It looks like the Skate series of games was the inspiration for this game rather than the Tony Hawk games. Similar camera angles as Skate. Realistic simulation style play over arcade style play. Higher learning curve over pick up and play. This is a spiritual sequel or homage to the Skate series of games, not THPS

"Tire radius". You mean wheel size? Come on man lol.

“Tyre radius” wow I’ve heard enough of this review now🤦🏼‍♂️

These games are perfect for old people who use to skate AND current skaters. If you are neither you can't really play a game like this, there are no preset moves so how would they know what to WANT to do? Glad they made it I'm a 50 year old that never stops thinking about skating :)

It's not that the popularity of skateboarding games has gone down but rather that there have not been many good skateboarding games since the last skate. Really wish Tony Hawk would release a game that had skate controls with both sticks.

I've never skated but have always loved skateboarding games that are as close to the real deal as can be. Bought Session in early access and it is the best skate game for me. Hoping they add a vert mode or something in the future.

Tyre radius? 😂

At first I was all about skater XL and then I played the session beta on PC and I was like ok this is dope and then I got the full game recently and it's dope af. It's definitely better than skater XL. I like both but session definitely takes the cake and even on console you can tweak the gameplay to make it even more realistic. The base settings when you start off playing are already damn near perfect. If you play skater xl on console the settings are horrible. Session is definitely much much better on console and PC. It's definitely the most difficult skate game I've ever played and this is coming from someone who grew up skating and swore nothing was better than skater xl but goooood damn session is dope af and better than skater xl. I guarantee whoever says skater xl is better hasn't played session.

Surprisingly I agree with the end statement if you don't know skateboarding much AND don't care to put the time to learn it, then you won't like it. If you like skateboarding and realistic at that you will love it as do I

People need to understand this is a review from the non skater casual perspective of which gaming is also a market towards, so as a skater whos been playing this game for 2 years on Hardcore settings its pretty solid for what it is, he's right about the music, i had to turn it off because it kept playing what sounded like the same reggae song for over an hour even though it was different lyrics it still all felt like the same song. The games score from the casual perspective being a 6 also makes sense, because yes it is a difficult game if you aren't patient or have some basic understanding of real life skating, the camera can be fixed in the settings so that problem is not actually a problem, but pretty much everything else he said was spot on (i cant speak for console players on the graphic problems but on pc it looks stunning with all the settings cranked to max). No voice acting, the quest log is listed under options as Skater Logs, i dont recall if the game even tells you that your missions are in the skater log or even tells the casual you can track to the next spot so you dont end up lost, other than that if you are a skater games definitely a 10 for what it is & from my understanding this is still just the beginning as they are planning a shift to unreal 5 someday with all that sick nano tech at their disposal and they're looking at hiring animators so we can get them juicy animations.

THPS was released in August 1999. Skateboarding games were all the rage in the 2000s, not the 90s

Next time get someone with a shred of skateboarding knowledge to review a skating game, holy cow.

I'm sorry did you just say "tire-radius"?

I am a real skater and have been for over 14 years I've played all the tony hawks games all the ea skate games I never played skater xl because it just didn't look good to me but session to me is the don of all skate games till this day its the best at everything and I really hope this game gets cared for and treated with updates more missions and more everything 👍

Two things…First off when I first started playing sessions regularly when it dropped last week I did not like it at all. Over the weekend however I just kept trying tricks and getting a feel for it and then everything clicked and I realized the beauty of this game. It’s very similar to Skater XL and in some cases better. Only thing is I wish it had online multiplayer. Now to the review here. I don’t think the reviewer really explored the entire game as shown by his “Lifeless world” comment. If you go into the settings you can add pedestrians to the game under the “Experimental” setting. So the world doesn’t have to be lifeless if you don’t want it too and there’s other settings you can mess with the make the control a little more forgiving when you begin. Now I’m doing all kinds of cool tricks and recording videos and I’m really liking Sessions…Now it’s a chore picking which game I like better but I’m thinking of Sessions had multiplayer I’d like it more. Peace

Wait this skating sim doesn't have plot twists and a character arc??.... Well I'll be

Sessions is on PlayStation 🤔

Yeah i gotta go down to the skateboard shop and get some new skateboard tires for my skateboard.

You didn’t mention a lot. Also the visuals are perfect.

A skater shoulda prolly reviewed this 🤷🏽‍♂️

This is what happens if you buy a review on wish

Coming from a former skater I skated for 8-10 years and I’m a gamer I remember when skate came out it was every skaters dream game so these games that take skating seriously are are awesome ch tiny hawk games suck I understand people who didn’t skate liked them more than a real skater

Hahaha comparing tony hawks to session . This reviewer has no idea

i could tell how this was gonna go before i even started the video 😅

I can confirm getting tricky on an actual skateboard is easier than playing this game😝

TLDR: I don’t skate, don’t care about skating, still think THPS is the go to skateboarding game, didn’t play Session long enough to warrant an opinion but give many stupid ones that would call into question my ability to review any game: 6.

As someone who has greatly enjoyed the old Tony hawks, I found this a fantastic change of pace and difficulty in its own right. I agree the world is pretty bland but I get so caught up with actually skating that the environment outside my truck zone is a blur. The frustration and reward reminds me a lot like dark souls trying to kill a boss. You try over and over on a line or a rail you found to try the million different way to take it on and combo from there. As someone who never got to skate due to fear of harm, this satisfies my inner skater

I would say sessions inspiration is skate not tony hawk

Happy for more skating games, waiting one TH underground remake....maybe forever

I dont get your points about the visuals, this game can look beautiful

Is There a skate game for ps5? I really liked that one that came out on ps3 and xbox 360.

1:15: This game was clearly inspired by the Skate series more than THPS. Though, I suppose you could say everything post-THPS took some influence from it. 1:25: No... no they don't... Doing an ollie in this game literally just requires you to hold one stick down and flick the other stick up... This isn't a 'deep understanding'... It's a basic action... Also, 'know how the board works?' What does that even mean? Like, know how the board flips during any particular trick? If you're playing with auto-catch on, which I'm sure you are, you don't have to time your catches when doing a trick. About the only thing you really need to be aware of is whether or not you actually have enough space to clear an obstacle when tricking over it, which isn't that hard to understand by just trying to clear any particular obstacle with anything other than an ollie. And honestly, this game can sometimes be pretty forgiving when transitioning from a flip trick to a grind, depending on your settings. 1:29: The controls can seem a little daunting at first, yes, but, they're more intuitive then you give them credit for. The game is more about recognizing the orientation of your skater, (whether you're skating regular/goofy or switch) more than it is about remembering what control stick/button controls which leg necessarily. So, no, the controls aren't as simple as just 'pick-up-and-play' but they are definitely very intuitive. 1:52: Yes, that's the point. And let's just be clear here; you're going to fall quite often even past your first couple of hours, because every fall, mostly, (yes, the game's slight bit of jankiness can screw you up occasionally) means that you did something wrong on the set-up to your trick, which means you'll have to make a slight adjustment to get it right the next time. That's the beauty of it. 1:56: You talk about the tutorial, but you don't really go in-depth about how informative the tutorial may or may not be for a first-time 'casual' player, which would be a pretty important thing to to talk about for a game like this... Also, you fail to mention the fact that you can skip the tutorial if you select the highest default difficulty settings, as well as just fail to mention the fact the game has a SLEW of different accessibility and physics settings in general..., which is easy enough to find by simply looking through the options... 3:30: I mean, what do you want? The game was made by a pretty small indie team, (though, they're getting publisher support now) and the campaign really isn't any more ambitions, mechanically, than Skate 3's really. Like, yeah, Skate 3 had more side-activities, sure, but at the end of the day, as far as the progression of its campaign is concerned, you're still just doing specific tricks/lines at a specific locations to rake in more fame and sell more boards. I mean, ffs, the Tony Hawk games were usually little more than just doing specific challenges on specific maps to progress as well... These games aren't really about their "stories" which is why they don't usually put too much attention on them. They're about your journey to getting better at them, so you can pull off an unbroken combo in the case of THPS, or hit that really difficult line you've been practicing, in the case of this game. 3:31: Good. The game WANTS you to experiment. That's the point. The intrinsic value of the missions are there to help push you into creative directions on how you might tackle any particular line you can find and formulate in the game. You're looking at them from a wholly extrinsic perspective, e.i. doing them just to get more cash and increase your exposure rating, which I'd argue is pretty misrepresentive of them. Like, yeah, sure those things are nice, but that isn't the ONLY value of the missions. 3:59: Which you can change in the options... 4:11: I'm sorry, what? You mean laying down a session marker? I'm sorry, but you make this seem like it's some kind of new mechanic we've never seen in a skateboarding game. And THIS is the "accessibility option" you chose to highlight? Bruh, what about the fuckton of physics options you can change in-game? The loads of options you can change on the fly like wheel bite, auto-reverting, auto-catch, grind alignment, big drop input, revert sensitivity, scoop/flick input AND input speed, mid-air spin options, etc, etc... How is 'laying down a session marker', something that's otherwise a standard feature in any skating game, the only thing you chose to highlight when talking about "accessibility options" in this game? 4:20: The fact that you're showing gameplay footage that isn't your own while talking about "ludicrous stunts" says a lot. Like, it's not THAT hard to do a kickflip to 50-50, especially if you turn on all the TRUE accessibility options I just mentioned... Like, bruh, just play the game for, like, 30 minutes and record an ACTUAL line with the game's in-depth replay viewer, which anybody that's actually played this game can tell you is what the game is about: Pick an obstacle, throw yourself at it for a little bit while practicing the controls, and then when you actually land a trick sequence smoothly, use the replay viewer to record it. Do you honestly think that anyone is ALWAYS landing tricks on their first try in this game? 4:47: You gonna just gloss over the object placer in this game when you're off-board too...? 5:25: This game has had insane support during its EA days. The content drops weren't frequent but they were MEATY. Most EA games this ambitious would've most likely been dropped after its first year or gone on to just milk the few supporters left who still had hope for it while giving out sparse updates that don't add anything to keep those blind supporters on the fish hook. 5:38: Okay, I can see how you can say the game looks bland since it's going for the hyper-realistic style that a lot of games go for these days without really considering how that style helps the game, but this game is also going for a hyper-realistic feel, so we can agree to disagree on that. Lifeless textures though? Have you actually LOOKED at the detail the skate spots in this game have? Railings have their paint chipping off and eroding away from so many boards sliding across it. Spots have wheel tracks carved into them that give you an idea of how other skaters approached a certain obstacle, or where the most popular landing spot is when clearing a gap. The detail put into the environments is insane. I agree that the pop-in is a little bad, but the lighting is great, especially at night with the street lamps on. And while I agree the city is lifeless even when you use the experimental NPC feature, I'd also say the atmosphere is pretty decent for what it is. The sound design of just rolling across a surface, connecting with a grind, landing, background ambience etc... is pretty good, even if some sounds can feel a little misplaced at times. 5:52: Fair enough, but you could at least mention the fact that the game's soundtrack is going for an incredibly chill vibe. I find this game's soundtrack to be hella relaxing, and a little early [adult swim]-ish, featuring artists you might've never heard of. It has around 70 tracks across three radio stations that you can control by holding in the right stick and pressing a button on the d-pad; left/right to change the track, up/down to change the station. To be fair though, I don't think the game ever tells you about this and I do think it should. 6:05: Yes, this game can have a sort-of 'uncanny valley' vibe to it, but you fail to even mention the biggest contributing factor to this which is the models. The NPC & Vehicle models mostly, which is your only real leg to stand on when talking about the real problems of this game's raw visuals. That, the pop-in and the horrid ghosting effect on your skateboard, which you also didn't mention and definitely should've been fixed by now... So, in conclusion, this review was pretty trash. Even when leaning on the 'this review is for people who aren't familiar with skateboarding, but want to try the game' perspective, it's still pretty trash, considering that as a reviewer, it's still your job to have a good understanding of the game yourself before critiquing it. It doesn't matter how much skate lingo you knows, or whether or not your a skateboarder in real life. I've never skated a day in my life and I have a better understanding of this game than this review. As long as you can give an accurate depiction of the game and it's mechanics, as a game, the review is successful, which means doing your damn research. You don't have to be a 'specialist', you just have to put the damn work in, and this review doesn't really do that at all. It just kind of says; 'this game isn't really for me, because it's not arcade-y enough, and thus, it's pretty mediocre at what it's trying to accomplish', which is is an incredibly asinine conclusion, and playing the casual card to justify it is not a good defense, especially as a reviewer. Anyway, if you've read this far, you're the greatest thing since man discovered fire. Hope the rest of your day goes well.

A rollerblader reviewed this

Anyone notice 120fps does not work? Also my Ollie breaks after playing for a little. Can’t Ollie besides low low. And I know you can low Ollie, this is different and wondering if anyone else has this happen. I have to reset the game to get it working again

Tyre radius? It’s not a game about 4x4 man come on

I've been skating my WHOLE life. Probably longer than some of you whipper snapper's have been alive. lol With that said, I did enjoy my time with game in early access. The game is definitely rough but nails the simulation aspect for the most part. I hate to say this but SKATE is still the king of the genre. Skater XL is another sim worth checking out. Best part is both of these sim skate games are CHEAP.

What's up with that ghosting trail at night time it looks like a broken monitor

Did you review a game without actually playing it ?

Damn, he didn't mention xbox at all, and the story was in b4 the update. This video had no soul down to the sound

Tell me you’ve never skateboarded, without actually telling me you’ve never skateboarded.. lol

Tire radius???

I love this game… I greatly appreciate what creā-turn studios did… I hope they can continue to update it and make it the best skating game ever with vert ramps grabs, animations, more brands and some sort of friends skating together or at least Npcs skating around too…

this is the best LOOKING skate game ever. this fool trippin

Wish it had proper online multiplayer. It feels a bit lacking without it.

Didn't mention early access on xbox or that it's even out on xbox....weird

Holy this game is so hard

Wow 1 year later and the updates and dlcs still delivery a nice nich skating simulator.😂 i love this game a lot. Nice review .

I just want to play skate 3 again!!!

Interesting to see a non skaters perspective

Maybe try harder with the next review haha

"Thps is the obvious inspiration and the game requires you to learn jumps." Wtf am I watching looool

ITS A FREAKING SKATEBOARDING SIMULATION so yeah its gonne be difficult controls,can you get a freaking skater to review this game he calls tricks stunts and just full on is such a bad review of the damn game for what it is! BTW you can change the damn camera from close to mid or far! did you by chance have the game in Low graphics because it looks Fire

Skate games were more 2000’s then 90’s thps came out end of 99

The ghosting at nighttime is distracting as fuck

i’m in to skating and i’ve been all my life so maybe i can’t say anything but dude this game isn’t THAT hard not as hard as you make it out to be for sure.

It's also out on Xbox

Who’s gameplay 😂😂😂😂 Best of looking at people who know how to play this game. This gameplay isn’t representative

Gets Laggy after a while. Return to title screen and back to game to fix it

You mention the close up camera angle screwing you up and frustrating you, then fail to even mention you have full control over the camera distance, height and horizontal and vertical settings.. this game isn’t for non skaters, period.

6/10? Really? And to say the graphics are bland and visually unappealing in a game that's all about being a skate sim is so disingenuous! I mean sure this isn't AAA graphics but it can look pretty close to real life skate videos with the amount of style and freedom you have over what tricks you can do. Plus the graphics look pretty good imo, people are just spoiled with movie like graphics that they expect every game to look like that now. And to say that "unless your willing to put dozens of hours into it to learn the controls and game mechanics" uhm there are tonns of great games out there that requires the same amount of effort to master it. To even call this a review is shameful and a detriment to every real gamer out there! 🤦‍♂️

Looks better than Skater Xtra Small, that game didn't even have missions or a scoring system

The board ghosting!

This game is hard asf

This game is overly frustrating. It's not fun like skating in real life. Why no grabs? Why can't we replay the fkn examples? Skate 4 needs to hurry. 3/10

"Tire radius"

It's a real shame the person who reviewed this doesn't have a very good grasp on the game or skating in video games in general. I mean starting off saying 'skateboarding games were popular in the 90s' doesn't make sense because while there were several games released one was much more popular than the rest, Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Also, Session has VERY little in common with the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, they're both skating games, that's pretty much it. It's like saying Outrun or Burnout inspired Gran Turismo. To not even mention Skate as a huge influence on the game is a massive misrepresentation of where it started and how far it's come. Not expecting the guy to be a skateboarding historian, but it's very clear they barely have even a surface level understanding. Comparatively, IGN does a much much better job at giving this game a fair shake and even they miss a few details that would only be known by people who are fans of skateboarding or skaters themselves.

If it doesn't play like thps and is based on real skating, why is thps an "obvious inspiration"?

Did u just say TIRE RADIUS

This game seems to get a lot of praise from people who actually skate, And that's fine. But for those of us who have mostly been fans of skating GAMES our entire life... This game is a nightmare in almost every possibe way. The accessibility options are SUPER deep and thats good, but nothing made the controls more bareable. The two-stick controls are almost MIND MELTING!!! I really was hoping for more of a relaxed, fun-filled, skate 3ish kind of vibe. So if that's what you're looking for do NOT buy this game!!!! It will disappoint you drastically!!! But if your a REAL skater or whatever, then you'll probably like it 🤷🏾‍♂️

Poor lighting? Wtf haha

26K Views 370 Likes 1.1 Mil subs Tells me everything about this review.

'Bland visual presentation'.... wut? Did you even watch your own footage? The game looks fantastic. Sorry they didn't chuck puddles and neon lights everywhere for cheesy screen space reflections like everyone apparently wants nowadays.

We don’t need voices just good game play

Why tf is there still a fucking trail behind the board in the full release. What the actual fuck

As a 35-year-old. This is top five worst games I’ve ever played in my life….

We REALLY need the dislike button back.. 😒

Whoever is playing in this review is awful. The game isn’t that hard guys. You’ll get it down after the first 30 minutes. After that it’s about learning tricks

This man’s reviews are always on point but at the end of the day it’s just opinion not for everybody

This is a terrible review by someone that didn’t bother trying to immerse themselves in the game. What a shame.

What a flop review series

If you had actually spent some time playing this game, your review would be much different..

nora should be raging, the character models are actually terrible..

“Stunts” lmao

This dude is pushing mongo and saying Tony Hawk games are the go-to games for virtual skateboarding, completely dismissing the Skate-franchise. Tell's you everything you need to know.

I would advice giving this review to someone who skates or knows anything about session. This is a terrible review of a groundbreaking game.

Can’t really take this review to seriously this is more of a review from a outsiders perspective people who don’t really skate or know the culture RU-vidrs like nightspeed are the people u should go to for fair analysis of the game

The trailing of the board is a problem that needs to get fixed

Honestly, this might be one of the worst games I’ve ever played in my life.

No one had a problem with the Arcade Style… Session is just straight boring

Just want you to know, everyone in the Session discord is laughing at you. LMAO. Open the pause menu and change the camera angle GENIUS. You can also change the time of day. If you'd taken 2 seconds to learn about a game you are obviously biased about and uninterested in. LOL what a bozo review.

Third.

I was excited to see this come out but after seeing where the camera was being placed when you skate it looks awful. Skate 3 had the perfect camera placement same with the tricks. Session controls are so uncomfortable to use