Disney Extreme Skate Adventure  screenshots   The Final Say! Gameplay 8.0 Graphics 8.0 Sound 6.9 Value 7.0 Disney Extreme Skate Adventure  -  reviewed by Tory Favro Review Score 7/10  (not based on an average) Distributed By: Activision

I was looking forward to this title for a number of reasons, not the least being that I am a huge fan of all things Disney and you know that as a rule, one can expect quality from a Disney product. Sounds like I am setting you up for disappointment, right? Well you are wrong, I was highly impressed with the title however there were a few things that niggled at me when playing the title that I will get out of the way first.  The advertising in the game was absolutely ridiculous. For heavens sakes, kids nowadays are overweight as it is without seeing ads for McDonalds in the game they are playing. In the Ollieworld level alone I counted about four ads for the golden arches and when one of the tasks involved actually making deliveries for the store that is located on the level, I was actually disgusted.  Then to annoy me even more, there were the ads for Nokia scattered all over the place. Considering this title is aimed at our younger market, what was the point of having this in the game. I know that the game is made with the Tony Hawk 4 engine (a strong point for the game), and in that game in the college level, there is a Nokia blimp in the sky, but having all the billboards scattered about made it just a tad stupid.  Neversoft and Disney, please do not repeat this in the future as it soured the title a lot for me, despite how good the rest of if was.  The game intros in to a movie of children in real life trying out to be one of the skaters lucky enough to be digitized into the title, which was nice to see. A little more could have gone into showing the process, but the footage was pretty cool and imagine what a buzz it would have been for the kids who won the competition! Then onto the main menu where you can choose your skater and the other options to tweak it somewhat. Anyone buying this title because of it’s Tony Hawk 4 engine would be best advised to go straight into the options menu and turn on the pro controls.  Graphically the game looks a treat and really takes you into the worlds of the Disney characters and there is a fair amount of detail including, not to mention the fact that the title runs as smooth as silk. You can warp from one level to the next at selected areas where a roll of film appears as you approach. It’s a novel way to get from one area to the next but understand that to access some areas it will be a case of finishing enough tasks to unlock that level.  For youngsters playing the title, the really cool thing is that it’s so very easy to get your skater to do some really cool things.

Unlike Tony Hawk 4 where you would actually have to do some really tricky maneuvering, Disney’s Skating is simplicity itself to get up to manuals, grinds and the like. There are only a number of different tricks that can be done and they are facilitated very easily with a minimum number of buttons to be pushed. Combos are also included, as are specials.

This is when the game gets interesting for more experienced players. As I have previously mentioned, go into the options menu and select the Pro controller setup. Then I noticed that a lot more button pushes came into play, giving me what I felt to be a greater amount of control over the game. For those wanting to rack up the big scores never fear; the revert option is included in this title allowing you to link those big tricks together with ease.

The audio from this game has me absolutely mystified and was in appropriate for the target audience of this title. I liked all the music and would listen to it by choice, however would not want my young kids listening to it. There are a number of negative lyrics, no profanity, but enough that I found myself shaking my head in wonderment. Considering the amount of punk and alternate music, I wondered why the heck they didn’t take the brilliant music from Disney’s library and use it in the game instead. Maybe this couldn’t be arranged, however that’s not my problem, I just comment as I see fit.

Possibly the only other thing to take into account is that if you choose anything other than the humans to play as, they are going to have different forms of transport so don’t expect to be riding a skateboard for the whole game.  Of course it will perform exactly like a skateboard, but the actual appearance is another matter altogether. You’ll be skating with leaves, shields and all other sorts of items as your mode of transport through the game.

Rewards are all part of the fun as well with extra clothes and characters being unlocked as you complete goals in the career mode. Players can also create their own characters in the Create a Skater mode using different body part and facial features.

Disney’s Extreme Skate Adventure also supports a pretty nifty two player mode in split screen so the life of the title is extended exponentially as friends take it upon themselves to compete in this fun game against each other.

In wrapping up this review, I really liked this game and thought it was a clever addition to the Disney stable of games. If it hadn’t been for the absolute bombardment of commercials in Ollieworld this game would have scored higher than what I eventually awarded the title. With so many commercials in the game, it almost seems a  bit rude that players have to pay to see them. Maybe next time they could do a game for free that was crammed with ads all the way through?

In any case I digress, Disney’s Extreme Skate Adventure is well worth playing and is a title that both young and old are going to get a kick out of.

- Tory Favro