The skateboarding video-game throne is a bit dusty as of late and Session is here to claim it. Created by crea-ture Studios Inc., Session takes you back to an era where skateboarding games were good; back when it was just about hitting the pavement with your board and pulling off sick tricks.
Session
Developer: crea-ture Studios Inc.
Price: $19.99
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for preview
Harkening back to the more realistic style of Skate, Session takes things a bit further by going all in on the realism angle. Whereas Skate had you performing tricks by flicking the right thumbstick, Session instead assigns control of your character’s feet to both sticks. The left stick controls your left foot and the right stick handles the other foot with turning assigned to the two trigger buttons. Performing a simple ollie for example requires you to pull the right stick back and then flick the left stick forward. Now this is all assuming you’re in regular stance, because that’s the other caveat of Session: it features regular and goofy stances, but within that also has regular, nollie, switch, and fakie tricks. Your trick list changes depending on what stance your in so you’ve got to be aware of where your character’s feet are positioned on the board, or else you’ll crash into a ramp you meant to jump but you made the wrong inputs because the controls were reversed due to your stance change. The system takes some serious getting used to, but once you do you’ll find yourself effortlessly pulling off slick combos. One recommendation I’d give for players having a difficult time keeping track of the left and right foot is to go into the settings and change it to front foot/back foot for the stick controls. This locks it so that it doesn’t matter which foot is on the front or back of the board, the left stick will always be for the front foot and the right stick will be for the back. There’s honestly an impressive amount of leniency of settings to turn on that help ease you into the game’s mechanics and as you get better you can slowly turn off the handicaps.
Session wants you to be very methodical in the way you play it; this isn’t Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, where you’re spamming button inputs to rack up 50-trick combos. Instead, you’ll maybe pull off a single kickflip when jumping off a ramp to then grind a rail and that’s your sick combo. It might not be as flashy as the more arcadey THPS, but it’s not going for that vibe. Here, like Skate, you need to decide exactly what trick you’re going to pull off and plan your route. You’re going to eat pavement a lot in this game, but there’s nothing better than telling yourself “okay I’m gonna do an impossible off this ramp to then boardslide this rail, then kickflip into manual off that” and finally pulling it off. Lining up your combo and nailing every trick perfectly is incredibly satisfying to the point where you’ll be sending friends the videos you’ve shot.
Speaking of, Session features a built in video creator that’s maybe not the most intuitive in the world, but it works. A simple click of the button puts you in video mode where you can rewind the last few minutes of your play session and cut footage to form montages that you can then share.
The game does feature the ability to hop off your board to run around and place objects in the world for you to set up a series of objects to trick on. This mode is… not great. The camera when in third person alone can get nauseating as it swivels wildly, but it gets even worse when you go into object placement mode. Just getting a few rails to line up together is an utter nightmare, and the amount of objects you can place at a given time isn’t a whole lot. Along with this, the game could also do some work with its tutorial by going more in-depth on its control scheme and maybe incorporating some way to better teach you how to hit grinds or maximize jumps off of ramps. I was told more tutorials are being added in, so hopefully those address my issues.
Besides all that, there’s not really much else to the game because in its current state, this is all there is: a new skateboarding control scheme with a few tricks (grab tricks coming later), a simple character customization page, and a decently sized chunk of NYC that’s recreated in-game. I do wish the city was easier to understand visually because even a few hours in I didn’t have a total grasp over how to get to which sections of the map from where. The fast travel system (finding a bus stop) doesn’t help either since whenever you travel to a new area and decide you want to leave you have to go find another bus station because it doesn’t ever drop you in front of one. NYC is fun to skate around, I just wish it were better at feeding you directions, especially when many areas lead to dead ends.
Being an early access game of course means the game comes with some issues such as the occasional crashing, and some unpolished menu UI. The models themselves also look mildly unsettling with their constant hundred yard stare going on and some sound effects either don’t work or flat out aren’t there. I also experienced some issues in the tutorial where it would just skip ahead to the next section despite me not having completed the current one I was on. With no way to replay the tutorial this caused me to have to start the game without knowing how to grind. Of course with every early access game, buying into this is less you buying into a game and more you investing in the idea of what this game could be a few months down the line. There’s not much “game” to be had here, but what’s here is more or less functional and can be fun if it’s your cup of tea; just know what you’re getting into when it comes to early access titles.
In its current state Session feels more like a proof of concept that a complete game. The potential for a great new skateboarding game is here, it just needs someone to iron out the kinks. Regardless, I still had a lot of fun booting it up and smashing my face into concrete as I try to nail that perfect trick.
