When Skate landed a couple of years ago courtesy of Black Box EA, it wasn't just a breath of fresh air; it was an optimistic step in the right direction for a busted genre, riddled with a large abundance of Tony Hawk series games. EA have returned again to offer up another serving of Skate, and as you'd expect they haven't really reinvented the series just yet, cause if it's not broken, don't fix it. Instead, it seems they've observed some of the better ideas, if you will, from the Birdman games and attempted to adopt them as their own. I, personally, think it may have been more worthwhile focusing on the more troubled areas of the original, such as story direction.

While I never bothered to play out the conclusion of the original, I am to presume your created thrasher somehow finds themselves behind bars for copious amount of shredding, and gnashing and an assortment of other skating terminology. Seems as though your time in the slammer has come to pass (which was an apparent five years) and San Vanelona, now with a classy ‘New' prefix, is a changed city. After earthquakes devastated the city, it has been reconstructed to noticeable change – however, players of Skate will recognize some familiar locales in New San Van. As per usual, the player is expected to progress the narrative by means of completing challenges scattered throughout the city's often populated streets. As was with its predecessor, the story remains to be a grounded, gritty story that may even be feasible in the real world – an obvious departure from the bizarre twists and turns seen in rival series Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Depending on your preference, this could either be good or bad; though considering Skate's tilt toward realism, a plausible story goes a long way to draw you into the goings on in New San Van.

In Skate, the player rose to status by encountering a number of pro skaters throughout their journey. This time around it's, well, exactly the same. You'll spend a large amount of your time crossing paths with pros and noted figures in the skating industry all in your hope to make New San Van the premier city for skating. The mission structure has been slightly tweaked this time around, making it a touch easier and much less frustrating for the player. In the original, most objectives forced you to execute very specific moves with little, to no, fault tolerance. The result had players simply jerking their thumbs with a pocket full of dreams just to pull it off successfully. Thankfully, success this time is more often determined by reaching a score cap, or simply outscoring your foe shredder. You'll still be asked to play the occasional game of S.K.A.T.E (a skating adaption of H.O.R.S.E, I know clever right?), but if anything it breaks up the action and keeps the game somewhat varied. The player now has the option of quick-travelling to marked locations on his San Van map; whether it is a mission marker or simply a skate park across town. I look down my nose at this decision as it takes the skate out of Skate; one of the most rewarding things to do in the original was to just cruise around and absorb the exuberant mash-up of real world cities, but now I just opt for the lazy boy alternative to get the show moving again.

Aside from the direct career-based missions, the player can also tear it up in a number of other activities to pass the time. Death races are the most notable of the lot, requiring players to race downhill at high speeds hitting checkpoints along the way and avoiding the succession of cars along the way. A greater emphasis has been placed on bailing this time, much like the Tony Hawk series. The Hall of Meat is a joy to play around with; in short, it rewards you for shattering bones, and earning a set amount of style points for rotating and taunting in mid-air. My friends and I have exhausted many hours taking turns ‘falling with style' from the Top of the E, possibly the best spawn-point in the game!

The flick-it system that revolutionized the genre in Skate returns in the sequel. And once again, the learning curve is steep. It's easy to scrape through the majority of Skate 2 by knowing the bare essentials, though to truly master flick-it would take a tedious amount of persistence. The system has undergone a few changes since it debuted a year and a bit ago, with Black Box adding a bag full of new tricks to be mastered. The boneless and inverts have also been added into the equation, allowing even more chances to score points. While the flick-it system ensures Skate is the premier skateboarding game of this generation, it's far from perfect as you will often find yourself inadvertently executing a chain of tricks when intending another. Players can now also skitch on the back of cars, reaching startling speeds and traversing the city as fast as the driver will allow.

You're now free to hop off of your board in Skate 2, another gameplay mechanic borrowed from the Tony Hawk games of old. Though, this is one instance where the Hawkman manages to trump his adversary, as the execution by Black Box is nothing short of abysmal. In theory, being able to dismount from your wheels to move ramps and rails is dynamite – though, Black Box's interpretation of this misses the mark completely as your skater handles like a shopping trolley with a busted wheel, with a jarred style of walking that completely ruins what could have been a valuable addition to an already amazing skateboarding franchise.

Skate.Reel makes its return as it once again allows players to save replays of their finest moments on the ramps, or even their most woeful and devastating stacks, then promptly uploading it for the world to see via Xbox Live. Sadly, as was missing in Skate, players still aren't able to make compilation videos backed by chosen music tracks – if only Black Box lifted this from the Hawk games!

Like other recent EA products, Burnout Paradise for example, the online is integrated so fluidly. At any point in your single-player experience, you may make use of the d-Pad to bring up the Xbox Live menu. From there, one press of a button can launch your online experience. Online you're able to partake in an abundance of activities, whether you act alone or meet up with friends to pull off some pretty cool co-operative tricks. EA have hit the mark again for accessibility in online gaming with Skate.

Visually, Skate 2 appears to be rather dated in a few areas, as it's quite apparent not a lot of effort has gone into refurbishing such things as character models, whether they are pedestrian or non-playable characters you're constantly interacting with throughout your business in San Van. The most noticeable change is the city itself, having been devastated by ‘earthquakes', the rebuild and new coat of paint have done wonders as the living, breathing city of New San Vanelona looks truly masterful and is a highlight of the game. It's worth a scoot around just to take it all in. One department where the Skate games continue to shine, however, is in the animation which remains to look so tidy. It's just one of the many touches that give the game a large serving of realism, rather than feeling as though you're holding one solid grind animation around the Foundry in Tony Hawk. It's a slight shame though that the bail animation can still seem a touch rigid and stale – although, being able to judo kick whilst pending the asphalt breaking your fall is a huge, huge plus!

The audio department is another where Black Box hits and misses with Skate. On the positive front, the soundtrack is probably the most solid I've seen in a game for some time (excluding the Guitar Hero games, naturally). A balanced mixture of hip hop music and rock (including a hint of Sabbath, by the way) make for some background noise actually worth listening to. Another plus is the bone-crushing bails; sure, they look brutal, but the real impact is in how it sounds – and it sounds like it hurts a whole lot. On the downside, Skate 2's rather polished career is often let down by average voice work, I mean sure it's great they got a lot of the pros on board, but let's face it; there's a reason they skateboard for a living! But props to Black Box for the cast of talent involved.