Session: Skate Sim

Session is the skating game I've always dreamed someone would make, where performing even a 'simple' trick is significant and challenging. There are no mile-long grinds or 900-degree kickflips here: just real skating in its rawest form. It doesn't just simulate the sport, but the art of skating too. You need to get creative, looking at the everyday clutter of a city and dreaming up ways to make something rad out of it. That's what street skating is all about, and why Session is the best virtual expression of the artform yet.

With the presence of multiple pro skaters including Daewon Song and Samarria Brevard, as well as a semi-open world with legendary skate spots like Black Hubbus and FDR Park, Sessions: Skate Sim is a well-written love letter to the sport. While some may feel underwhelmed by the lack of customization and find the controls too difficult to adjust to, players that have a love of skating and are itching to dive into a new skateboarding title will eventually feel right at home.

Despite the 1.0 release, Session: Skate Sim still has a few issues. However, this shouldn’t keep any skating fan away from this deeply rewarding simulator that can, at times, feel just as rewarding as the real sport.

Session: Skate Sim is the ultimate skateboard simulator, but also a video game with several shortcomings.

If you are new to skateboarding, chances are Session: Skate Sim will frustrate you more than impress you, but if you live for the board, it will provide you with an unrivaled simulator worth playing.

With a steep learning curve and bland presentation, Session: Skate Sim ends up being a mixed package.

Session: Skate Sim is a skate simulation that was very clearly designed with skaters in mind. From the extremely involved control scheme to the perfectly captured recreation of skate culture, the game seems like it was never intended to be a gateway for non-skaters to get into the sport. But the bugs, difficulty, general lack of fun, and incomplete state of the game make it difficult to recommend Session to its target audience as well. Some gamers may be able to break through the learning curve and appreciate the thoroughness put into creating such an involved skate sim, but at the end of the day, it's simply not fun.

User reviews on here are largely populated by ignorant troll psyho-babble and this game's user reviews are no different. This is akin to THPS as much as Mario Kart is to a truck driving simulator. This is not an arcade game, the controls are complex but intuitive due to the fact they reflect the real life motions required to execute different tricks. Like skating, it's hard at first but gets easier the more you play; after not too long all your favorite tricks will become second nature. Considering how small of a dev team the game looks pretty good, and if you're a fan of skate videos you'll recognize a lot of famous spots, something that other games have attempted but never have pulled off in this amount (or this well). If you enjoy skating in reality you'll likely enjoy this skateboarding SIM.

If you thought not being able to skateboard in real life was fun wait till you can't do it in a video game either. What almost feels like a fun skateboarding game is held back by a learning curve that most will probably just give up on. Sessions opts to go with a two joystick control system for tricks which requires you to input potentially multiple flicks into two joysticks back to back which isn't impossible but isn't a skill most people will have right off the back and causes the game to feel less fluid. When you do manage to do something on purpose or that you wanted to do it does feel good. But do to controls and lack of any real substance most will probably put this one down to play something else.

I give it a 6. It is fun but still has bugs and no updates. Also I don't like the fact that they charge full price for what seems a beta version of the game. They released a DLC for which I thought would be free considering the base game feels kind of unfinished and lacking content.

The character customization is humorously lacking and basically unacceptable in 2022. The controls do not feel intuitive at all. I had high hopes, which just makes the drop-off even more pronounced. I couldn't be more disappointed in this game.

This was even worse than tony hawk last games! I think we should be able to request refunds more often!