AusGamers has produced an in-depth Skater XL review and writes:
And that’s where the sport side of skateboarding, the art side of skateboarding and the spectacle side of skateboarding have always had issues as far as expression goes — which one is skateboarding?
Skater XL answers that by just being what it is. However, it fails at one of the most key aspects of the platform upon which it’s presented — as a videogame it’s pretty barebones. Don’t get me wrong the hybrid Skate flickit controls against each analogue stick being a *sort of* extension of your left and right feet is pretty cool, but you rob Peter to pay Paul with this system in that controlling the actual direction of your avatar is done by using the left and right triggers, so you have to ‘unlearn’ how you move in a game meant to allow for fluid movement. There’s weight and physics applied to all of this too, so getting deeper into the trick manifest starts to ask you to articulate input in ways you shouldn’t in this day and age of gaming. Long and short: a kickflip is easy, a nollie 360 inward heelflip frontside 180 to backside salad isn’t.
