[Playing…] Disney’s Extreme Skate Adventure

Although there have always been games about doing tricks and jumps with the skateboard, such as 720º (1986) or Skate or Die (1987), that genre reached its greatest degree of fame in the 32-bit generation thanks to the games in the saga Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

The first Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (known as Tony Hawk's Skateboarding in some countries) was a success, which led to the appearance of several sequels that reached many of the consoles of the time. The success of this saga is totally justified thanks to its learning curve, as it was very well put together, making it accessible to anyone who wanted to dedicate a little of their time to it. To that we must add the satisfaction we got from mastering movements that only a few days ago seemed impossible to us and how easy it was to fight with friends in multiplayer modes.

While the saga Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was evolving (and changing its name to Tony Hawk's Underground either American Wasteland among others) some games appeared that tried to take advantage of that popularity, combining it at the same time with licenses that attracted a larger audience.

One of those games was Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure, which appeared for PlayStation 2, Gamecube and Xbox. Game Boy Advance had its own version of the game, which was obviously different from the rest.

This game was developed by Toys for Bob and released by Activision and uses the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, which makes us find a fun and enjoyable game, moving it away from failed experiments like The Simpson's Skateboarding.

When it comes to enjoying the game we can choose between three types of characters: The skater children (based on real skaters between 6 and 14 years old who participated in tests made for the game), the Disney characters (from the movies The Lion King, Tarzan and toy story 2) and our custom player.

The control in general is simple and accessible: We have a button to accelerate, which will also be used to jump, buttons to climb onto the elements of the stage (walls, railings...) or do tricks such as lifting the skateboard, and if we combine different directions with buttons in specific situations, our character will begin to do tricks such as grinding or doing a handstand on the edges of the stage.

All the characters are controlled in a similar way, with their obvious differences in attributes and some animations, although the most striking are the Disney ones, who make the strangest movements and the most striking animations (for example, when Buzz Lightyear falls to the ground and gets up, he points his laser quickly, as if he had been attacked).

This game has a lot of content to unlock (characters, boards, videos, scenarios and elements to customize your skater) so if we want to obtain everything we will have to spend a few hours in the main mode, traveling through a city called Olliewood where we can talk to other characters who will propose increasingly difficult missions (some of them related to brands that are advertised in the game, such as Nokia and McDonalds).

In some corners of Olliewood we will find access to the different Disney worlds (some are blocked from the beginning) where we will also have to look for the characters from the movies to give us missions, and as we complete them, access to other scenes from the same movie will open and we will obtain the hidden skaters. It is not necessary to complete all the missions to obtain all the stages and all the skaters, but the game still offers a lot of entertainment for the solo player.

The Disney movies are the best addition to the game and what differentiates it the most from the Tony Hawk games, since their settings are mostly unreal and that gives this game something totally unique.

For example, in the Toy Story levels our character will have the scale of a toy, so we can grind on dominoes, loop on racing car tracks, jump over the toilet bowl, climb on arcade machines or use pizza boxes as ramps.

In the Tarzan levels we can play in the middle of the jungle, on a boat and in a camp, using all the elements to make jumps and tricks unthinkable in a realistic game.

The Lion King levels may be less crazy, but it makes up for it with the fact that one of them (The Elephant Graveyard) is huge and possibly the most complex and enormous in the entire game.

The Disney characters that we can control are the following: The Lion King, Simba, Nala, Rafiki y el dúo formado por Timón y Pumba. De Tarzan, Jane, Tantor, Terk y por supuesto Tarzán. Y de toy story 2 tenemos a Woody, Buzz, Jessie y Zurg.

Aunque la selección de personajes no es mala (teniendo en cuenta las películas elegidas) hay algunas decisiones raras, como que todos los personajes se hayan incluido en su versión niño o cría (supongo que para encajar con el hecho de que los Skaters humanos son niños) y el no haber incluido a algunos personajes con los cuales hablamos durante las misiones (como por ejemplo Rex, Ham, los soldados de juguete, Scar o las hienas).

Aunque sin duda la peor decisión relacionada con los personajes de Disney es que no podremos usarlos fuera de sus mundos, o lo que es lo mismo, si elegimos a Woody como personaje solo podremos jugar en los niveles de toy story, ya que no estarán disponibles los de los otros personajes Disney ni el mundo Olliewood, de manera que los únicos personajes que pueden jugar en todos los niveles son los skaters niños (y nuestro skater personalizado).

Otra decisión extraña es que no se ha incluido ninguna canción de Disney en los mundos de cada película. Creo que las versiones instrumentales de varias canciones habrían quedado muy bien. En su lugar tenemos una banda sonora con tintes de música rock, pop y punk, con bandas como Simple Plan, Reel Big Fish o Smash Mouth.

Dejando de lado el modo principal, el juego también nos da la posibilidad de competir en el modo a dos jugadores, donde podemos elegir varias modalidades de juego que ya aparecían en los juegos de Tony Hawk: Competición por puntos (se elige una puntuación y gana el primer jugador que la alcance); Rey de la Colina (el jugador ha de conseguir una estrella y mantenerla durante el tiempo indicado para ganar, pero si choca con el otro jugador o sufre caídas en algunos elementos del escenario, como el agua, perderá la corona); y el BURRO (los jugadores compiten por turnos en diferentes partes del escenario donde solo tendrán unos segundos para hacer más puntos que el rival).

En términos generales diría que Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure fue una sorpresa mayúscula para mí, ya que esperaba una copia mala de Tony Hawk y en su lugar me he encontrado un buen juego que me ha mantenido enganchado muchas horas tratando de desbloquear todo lo posible, además de haberme divertido muchísimo con el modo versus, gracias a los alocados niveles y los curiosos personajes de Disney.