This is the advice offered by Skate 2:

If you need to get a little extra speed on the streets, try pumping some tranny.

I don't have a retail build of the game yet, so I can't check the ESRB rating. But I'm pretty sure the above constitutes drug references, sexual situations, and cross-dressing. That should at least be a T rating. So if you're under 16, stop reading now.

If you're over 16, go ahead and read about pumping trannies after the jump.

There's an early challenge on pumping trannies, a sort of tutorial, but it doesn't help much. It's not until considerably later that I finally understand the art of pumping trannies. This is the case with many of the challenges that seem to be teaching me something, but don't teach it very well. So I fumble through, finish the challenge, and hope to accidentally learn whatever move later on.

As near as I can tell, pumping trannies is a matter of using my body weight (pumping) to get a little speed boost on the transitions (trannies) from a horizontal to a vertical surface. It's not until a really frustrating episode at the bottom of a drained motel swimming pool that I discover how it works.

When on a transition, I tap the stick down and let it pop up naturally back to the middle position. There. I've pumped a tranny. If I actually push the stick forward, I'll lean forward and ride out of the lip of the pool by leaning forward. But then again, there are times I actually want to get out of a bowl, but I can't be certain this works as I suspect. During one timed challenge, there's a bowl at the end which is great for a few stunts for extra points if you have the time to spare, but I've gotten stuck in there, unable to get out while the clock ticks down. So after my third or fourth attempt, I don't t dare go in there for fear of being unable to get out in time.

As I'm working my way up the learning curve of Skate 2, it keeps doing stuff like this to me. For instance, I'm told to "kickflip the 1st stairset".

Okay, I can do that. A kickflip is mostly an ollie, which is a matter of flicking the analog stick down then up. This represents bending down and then popping up, essentially doing a jump off the skateboard. There. An ollie. But by applying a little angle one way or the other, you make the board flip over. Kickflip. Elementary, my dear Reda.

I do it, and I do it over the stairs, and I land just fine. But I get a message that I've failed, along with a reproach: "Don't kickflip over the stairs".

Wait, what? It proceeds this way through about ten tries. There's something going on here that I can't quite grasp. So I'm supposed to "kickflip the stairset", but not "kickflip over the stairs". Can I get a real world sk8ter in here to explain the distinction to me? Actually, nevermind, because after about fifteen attempts, it finally solved itself mysteriously, and I managed to pass. I can't tell if maybe I was supposed to jump over the railing instead of the stairs, or if maybe I just wasn't clearing it with enough distance, or if I was supposed to jump from a certain area. But whatever. That's one challenge I don't have to do again.

The next challenge is to jump over two garbage dumpsters set end to end. It's impossible to do unless I drag a ramp in front of the dumpsters. Even then, I'm having a hard time clearing them because I haven't quite figured out the timing for jumps. Do I hold down then push up as I'm leaving the ramp? Is it a flick all in one motion? It is as I'm approaching the ramp? On three, or after three? I can't tell and I keep landing on the second dumpster.

But then I get the bright idea to turn the dumpsters sideways instead of lengthwise, which reduces the distance I have to jump by about half. Voila! I have tricked the developers! That's what they get for making me try to parse that stairs/stairset nonsense.

Up next: Need for Speed: San Van
(Click here for the previous Skate 2 game diary.)