Video games: 'Skate 2' is another smooth ride

For more than six months I've been reminding my buddy Kelly that "Skate 2" was coming out, and his typical response was telling me to shut up and stop talking about it. We were building up too much hype for it, and he was getting worried that we'd expect too much and get too little in return.

With the game's release, any fears we had were put to rest. "Skate 2" is a worthy sequel to the original, a game that redefined the skate genre and easily took the mantle away from the "Tony Hawk" franchise as the best skate franchise on the market.

"Skate 2" has its flaws, but if you are searching for a game that you can turn on and have fun with in about five minutes, you needn't look further.

A few years after the first game, you are newly released from prison and now must rebuild your street/skate cred. In your way is Mongocorp, a prototypical antiskating company that has redesigned New San Vanelona into a city that barely resembles what you remember before getting put in the slammer.

Mongocorp has capped and clipped all the good spots, although you'll soon figure out your way around them. EA Games could easily have given us the same city and no one would complain, but remaking the city and its environs opens up the skating creativity for you even more than before.

Photo and video shoots and S.K.A.T.E. competitions are back, and they are still the bread and butter of the game. There are larger-scale contests to enter, and part of the goal is to earn loads of cash and unlock tons of licensed gear. The amount of licensed material (from Girl, Lakai, Element and plenty of others) goes overboard, making parts of the game seem less about skating and more about pushing products.

The innovative controls have returned, with a little tweaking, and for the most part, they still seem fresh. You can land some unreal moves.