Session: Skate Sim is an incredibly realistic skateboarding simulator that puts you in full control. With realistic physics and challenging tricks to master, there is plenty of opportunity to reap several rewards whilst attempting to become a skateboarding master. However, sporting one of the most difficult control systems that I have ever encountered in any game (seriously), only the most dedicated of players will manage to make any significant progress. Read all about it in our Session: Skate Sim review.
With a unique and complicated control system, Session: Skate Sim punishes you both severely and repeatedly when you get trick combinations wrong (which you definitely will – trust me on this). Conversely, Session: Skate Sim rewards you immensely when you get them right.
First time?
The first time you play Session: Skate Sim will probably not become one of your fondest gaming memories. In fact, it will most likely be one of the most miserable experiences that you have ever had gaming in recent times. That is because you will feel like an immediate and repeated failure when you struggle to follow what appears to be the most basic of instructions.
Everything around how your character moves on their board and performs tricks feels distinctly alien and wildly unnatural at first. However, the controls are set up in such a way that you are essentially mimicking real-life movements that you would perform with your legs. It’s probably safe to presume that most games that you have played with a controller during your life would essentially require a button-press to perform some action. I would say that it’s probably also safe to presume that very few games require you to manoeuvre the sticks in such a way as to mimic real-life actions.
In short, you have to unlearn everything you know about playing with a controller and relearn this new, “natural” method of controlling your character. Once you “get it”, then you will probably manage to do pretty well in Session: Skate Sim. However, “getting it” takes a lot of time and effort, and a lot of people probably won’t have the patience for it.
Bizarre characters
During the tutorial, you will come across a number of bizarre characters who are significant in the in-game skateboarding world of Session: Skate Sim in some way. They advise you on how to carry out tricks and then you are left to do it. Alone. With no further guidance. At all. You will fail repeatedly and will probably angry-reach for Alt+F4 more than once.
For example, I quite literally spent more than 30 minutes attempting to pull off one (embarrassingly basic) trick and was on the verge of slamming my foot through my PC…but then I managed to do it. All of that hard work and about 250-300 attempts later (seriously), I managed to do it! An immensely rewarding feeling washed over me and you know something? I wanted to carry on. I went from almost regretting having ever launched the game to wanting to explore every aspect of it in full, and this is something that Session: Skate Sim does very well. It gradually nudges you along the plank of insanity, right to the very edge, with the waves of failure crashing beneath your feet, only to reel you back in before you slip off and fall overboard.
Tutorials
With this in mind, I went on to complete both the regular and advanced tutorials, landing a number of tricks in the process and proceeded to continue to the “career mode” aspect of the game. However, the mission design in the career mode could have been done better as there appears to be no aspect of neither fun nor reason for most of it. Several of the missions are, as you might expect, “land this trick” or “perform this many tricks without breaking stride”, without much else in the way of a story. This is one area that could probably benefit from some improvements as it is easy to forget why you are trying to perform some tricks in the context of career mode.
What makes this game so hard is how precise you have to be and this is deliberate. The developers have included a literal warning notice on the tricks help pages which states that this game is incredibly difficult to learn and that you will probably fail. Why have they done this? Well, it’s because they wanted to create a realistic, life-like skateboarding simulator. You control your character by using the analogue sticks on your controller. The right stick controls your right leg (or “back” leg), and the left stick controls your left/front leg. Keeping this configuration in mind, tricks are carried out by manoeuvring the sticks into certain, precise positions, much like one would in real life.
Warning
What makes this game so hard is how precise you have to be and this is deliberate. The developers have included a literal warning notice on the tricks help pages which states that this game is incredibly difficult to learn and that you will probably fail. Why have they done this? Well, it’s because they wanted to create a realistic, life-like skateboarding simulator. You control your character by using the analogue sticks on your controller. The right stick controls your right leg (or “back” leg), and the left stick controls your left/front leg. Keeping this configuration in mind, tricks are carried out by manoeuvring the sticks into certain, precise positions, much like one would in real life.
One trick is to land in a manual after having been airborne. To do this, you must first gather speed, and then perform an ollie (jump). Before you land, you are required to either hold the right stick (back leg) down halfway to land in a manual or to hold the left stick (front leg) up halfway to perform a reverse manual. When you switch your stance, however, the sticks don’t adapt based on what is now your new front and back legs – they remain the same! As such, the right stick now becomes your front leg and the left stick your back leg, which means that all of the tricks that you are trying to land will now have to be done in reverse!
There is also a shop that you can visit to purchase various items. These range from aesthetics for your skater in the form of clothes, to performance upgrades such as skateboard decks, wheels, trucks, bearings, and grip tape. As you work your way through career mode, you will earn increasingly larger sums of money as you progress, and will therefore be able to purchase helpful upgrades to make the game just that little bit easier for you.
Incredibly difficult to learn
It’s no secret by now that the controls are incredibly difficult to learn and that repeated failure will happen. This was a deliberate decision by the developers because they wanted to make the experience as accurate and authentic as possible to skateboarding in real life. Fair enough. What isn’t so clear, however, is why they decided to set the left and right triggers as the buttons to turn your player in each respective direction. Not only that, but you can also use the left stick to turn your player left and right, but be careful!
I found that by positioning the left stick either a little too high or a little too low caused my player to randomly attempt to perform some trick or other, often resulting in a hard crash. To say that using the triggers of all things as the main method of turning your player around is baffling would be putting it lightly.
Tricks are difficult to learn and even harder to master, yet the feeling of accomplishment when you begin to regularly land some tricks perfectly is very powerful indeed. Using the sticks to pull off said tricks is unique and will take some getting used to, but I can see why the developers decided to do it this way. It adds a layer of realism that most other games in the genre might be lacking. Skateboarding in real life isn’t as easy as pressing a few buttons and simply nailing it. You will get your feet in a muddle at first and will certainly experience several painful landings before you even begin to get close to regularly nailing those impressive kickflips, grinds and jumps. This is clearly what the developers have attempted to recreate through the use of the controller.
Cash out
Both the training modes and career mode reward you with XP and cash. You can then spend them on things such as apparel upgrades and performance-enhancing upgrades for your skateboard. Overall, the career mode is not as interesting as it could be, but if all you want to do is master some tricks, then it shouldn’t cause many problems for you.
There is no multiplayer mode at present in Session: Skate Sim but the developers have stated that it is a feature that they are considering for the future. This would certainly open up a plethora of different options in the form of competitions, co-op play and many others.
Different scenery
There are dozens of maps to play through in Session: Skate Sim which is spread across New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco, each of which is vast and plentiful. You will find many interesting areas to explore, all of which have numerous options for you to land tricks on, such as vehicles, walls, stairs and even roadworks! The available options seem almost endless and skateboarding enthusiasts will no doubt want to explore every corner possible.
Session: Skate Sim is a good-looking game. The environments are all distinct, vast and intriguing. Unfortunately, everything appears to be nailed down to the ground in the most unforgiving way possible. If you so much as brush past a lone traffic cone, for example, it will remain fixed to the ground whilst sending you Superman-ing dozens of feet across the map. If you were to run into a high curb, then this outcome seems fair enough but colliding with flimsy things such as cardboard should not result in you almost flying off of the map and this is immersion-breaking, to say the least.
Clipping
Conversely, there is a lot of clipping that happens in Session: Skate Sim. This is also immersion-breaking because not only can it appear creepy (see screenshot above) but also sometimes causes collisions to occur. One example is when my character was skating right next to a railing one time. His arm started to clip through it for a few moments before randomly “unclipping” and subsequently getting jammed in the railings, thus stopping him violently on the spot, his skateboard continuing to speed away into the distance.
The point of simulators is to recreate an experience accurately and in as much detail as possible. Unfortunately, Session: Skate Sim fails to capitalise on its plethora of gorgeous map locations because they are all totally devoid of life. There is no movement whatsoever in any of them. There are no people walking around, no birds flying in the sky, no moving vehicles – they are all parked. In fact, the only thing that appears to be alive in these maps is your player and occasionally one of the odd NPCs that you might encounter. Otherwise, you are truly alone.
Conclusion
Session: Skate Sim is a highly realistic skateboarding simulator that will put your skills, knowledge and patience to the test. Boasting good visuals, a variety of interesting locations and an excellent soundtrack, it can make for a very interesting and rewarding experience. However, with a ridiculously complex control system and several immersion-breaking oversights and bugs, it really is difficult to maintain focus for long periods. This is a shame because without those issues, Session: Skate Sim has the potential to be one of the very best in the genre but in its current state, it almost seems unfinished.
Pros:
- Good visuals.
- Excellent soundtrack.
- Huge variety of locations and tricks.
Cons:
- Overly-complex controls.
- Bugs and immersion-breaking oversights galore.
- Maps are devoid of all activity and/or life.
- The game appears unfinished.
Grade: 6
Session: Skate Sim is currently available through GeForce Now. This review was made by Mus from PapaBear Gaming. You can check out his channel right here. You can follow him on Twitter by going here. That was it for our Session: Skate Sim review.