I'm now a lot like those punks you see mucking around on the sidewalk with their skateboards.

Read how after the jump.

The punks who muck around on the sidewalk suck at skateboarding. They're not at all like I was in Tony Hawk (Pro Skater, natch) when I'd do spectacular tricks on convenient rails and fantastic colorful half-pipes, flipping gravity the bird. These guys roll fifteen feet towards a curb and then flip the board into the air. It goes clattering to the ground, deck-up, and they land on their feet with a running stumble, trying to look way more cool than anyone has any business looking after he's almost pitched face-first into the pavement. They try it over and over, an endless procession formed by the same three or four cool listless kids, their boards spinning off at wrong directions, their feet slapping clumsily wherever they land. They nail maybe one out of ten "tricks".

At least, that's what the kids are like where I live. You might live in Santa Monica or Venice Beach or something, where they're golden, graceful, and spectacular.

But in Skate 2, I'm a lot like these kids who never land a trick. A typical challenge, at least at my beginner level, is a basic trick, or a relatively manageable score. It has to take place in a specific spot, often marked by a floating arrow. So I try it and fail. Since I can set a magic marker that instantly teleports me to a starting point, failure is no big deal. I don't have to line the trick up again, or worry about my speed. I just quickly teleport and try again. Often, I try ten times. In some instances, I try twenty times. There are a few I still can't get. I don't mind so much. It's the general vibe of the gameplay to attempt a tiny task over and over until you get it, much like the skater punks messing around trying to flipkick up onto that curb.

But here's the key, and it's why Skate 2 is special: when I fail, I don't feel it's the fault of the interface. It's because my timing is off, or because I didn't get the angle or the speed right, or because I was too ambitious. Every time I fail, I want to go back and try again, usually because I get a sense for what I should have done. Skate 2 doesn't betray me. I betray myself, over and over and over. And in the process, I gradually get better at Skate 2.

Up next: actual footy!
(Click here for the previous Skate 2 game diary.)