VR Skater on PSVR2 is shaping up to be the VR Tony Hawk’s game you’ve always wanted

I have so many fond memories of playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater on PS1. Those heady, hazy days spent huddled around a small television as my friends and I chatted nonsense and competed for high scores to the tunes of the game’s punk rock soundtrack were so carefree and full of laughter.

I feel like those days of going shoulder to shoulder are long gone now, and it’s something I’m not sure modern generations will ever experience the way I did. You know, with that fast internet and all the other futuristic nonsense we have now.

But of course, with every loss caused by futuristic nonsense comes a gain, and that particular gain is virtual reality, which has allowed VR Skater to be a thing that exists. VR Skater is a VR skateboarding game (obviously) that does a pretty good job of translating that ever more complicated gameplay loop of a Tony Hawk game into a virtual reality experience and for this week’s episode of VR Corner (above), you can watch me play via a preview build of the upcoming PSVR2 port.

The Mega Ramp is great fun, but the descent takes seconds. What I wouldn’t give for a longer, more extreme version of this skate park or even a sandbox style skate park to ride.

If the name VR Skater sounds familiar, it might be because DEFICIT’s game has been making its way through Steam Early Access since 2021. Despite some negative reviews due to a severe lack of updates, the general consensus of the PC VR version is still “very positive”, which meant that I was “very keen” to try out the demo of the PSVR2 port that was offered to me by the game’s publisher, Perp Games.

While the version of VR Skater I played was very straightforward in terms of content to try out – limited to a tutorial, two free-roaming-only courses, and a “Mega Ramp” bonus, there was still plenty of play for Me. take charge. And by ‘understand’, I mean crashing into a lot of stuff over and over while being very sweaty.

You see, VR Skater is definitely on the more extreme end of the VR spectrum in terms of physical movement, as you have to use your arms to control both the speed of the board and the tricks you’re trying to pull off. Once you’ve figured out what riding position you want to be in (goofy or steady), acceleration of the board is achieved by swinging your rear controller in a way that mimics the way your legs would push against the concrete below. of you if you were skateboarding. in real life.

Using your arms to do something that technically your legs should do takes a bit of getting used to, but honestly part of the fun of VR Skater is the repetition involved in learning how to nail your runs and to land the most points – worthy stuff. Much like in PS1 Tony Hawk, the initial skills are relatively easy to learn, but the real addictive challenge is learning to perform certain tricks and building up that muscle memory until you’re an unstoppable scoring machine.

Visually, there’s not much to shout about in VR Skater, but the simplistic graphics are yet another thing that helps encapsulate the early 2000s skateboard game vibe.

As you’ll see in the video above, if you’re like me, building up that muscle memory is going to take some time. There’s a lot to think about as you go through each course. You will need to remember to steer, charge your ollies or nollies before each jump, you will need to remember which arm to swing and which direction to swing it if you want to perform a specific trick in the air and you will also need to remember which of the face buttons press your Sense controllers if you want to grind a rail in a particular way.

Luckily, the motion controls in VR Skater are very responsive on the PSVR2, and I rarely felt like my bailouts were due to anything other than user error. Any lack of controller precision in a game that demands speed and precision like VR Skater does could absolutely ruin the experience, but once I learned the ropes the control scheme felt solid and precise, even if my skills on the board weren’t. .

That’s why I think VR Skater gives you such a buzz when you finally start pulling off proficient combos. Just like skateboarding in real life, I cracked up a lot as I got into it but, in the VR Corner video above, you can hear me screaming with joy at least twice during my races when I land a few laps in succession and feel the game loop start to click.

Each course has themed ramps and jumps around where they are set up. So in the docks for example, you can expect to jump around and grind up shipping containers and old ship parts.

While my initial thoughts on VR Skater based on the preview demo I played were mostly positive, the game isn’t without its issues so far. I’m not sure how old the version I’ve been playing is, but with the proposed June 21 release date coming up pretty quickly, it feels like there’s a lot of tweaking to be done in not much time. The majority of the flaws were minor things like misspellings present in the tutorial text, but a bit of graphical improvement wouldn’t hurt either. I mention it in the video, but the levels feel a little lifeless and visually they’re nowhere near as exciting as the gameplay.

I also think the learning curve may be a little too steep for new PSVR2 users who tend to be much more casual gamers than those on PC VR. On Steam, VR Skater describes itself as a “finely tuned mix of arcade and simulation,” but it definitely seems to be more focused on the simulation part. It makes integrating the experience a lot more hardcore than, say, a driving game like GT7 that you can just dive into and start driving. A simplified control scheme for beginners who might be using the DualSense instead of full-motion controls would allow people to get a feel for the game faster and it would certainly be a lot more welcoming than having to learn the ropes of the craft for hours of constant collision with obstacles as you make spaghetti shapes with your arms.

Overall though, VR Skater is looking to be an exciting and unique addition to PSVR2’s library and it’s something that will add some much-needed variety to the games on offer there. If you like the more physical side of VR, or just want to feel what it’s like to be Tony Hawk, without risking multiple hospital visits, you should definitely keep this one on your radar. .