Skate 3

Then there's Own the Lot, inspired by Freeskating in Skate 2, in which a given area has three random challenges selected for it, ranging from point accumulation to a list of tricks to nail. It's a kind of jukebox mode, and it's a lot of fun, but the biggest hit of the day is 1-Up, a cumulative turn-based game in which two teams of three players compete in 20-second rounds to score as many points as possible.

Risk and reward are knotted tightly together, as wiping out at any point will end a round early, so you're constantly weighing up whether to go for the safe tricks with their low rewards, or risk being the idiot who ruins everything for your gang when you flunk something special. Beyond that, standard Skate modes like Death Race will return, scaled up for three-on-three team play, so it looks like there'll be plenty for you to do.

It feels brilliant to play, and the game's enhanced by a welcome change in location. After the grim skateboarding crackdown of Skate 2, Black Box is leaving San Vanelona behind and beating it to the sunny, palm-tree ridden climes of Port Carverton, with its three districts covering University Hill, Downtown and Industrial. "It's a world where skateboarding is actually embraced," smiles DeLong.

"In San Vanelona, it was based on reality: cities don't want you skating. There are skate-stoppers and security guards. This is actually a fictional world where skating has always been okay: the university actually has a skateboarding team, and for all those skateboarders who are sick of being put down by The Man, this is the place for them." A place where skating is actually encouraged, eh? For a skating game, that sounds like a smart idea. And - right on, EA - who doesn't hate The Man?

But the shift in locale isn't the only tweak: Black Box is promising a better on-foot experience this time around - you certainly seem to handle less like a wheelie bin whenever you step off your board - and a focus on providing accessibility for new players without gimping everything for those who want a challenge, with a new Skate School mode and a range of difficulty levels.

"In the past, the game has always been: this is the control scheme, now learn to love it," says DeLong. "That hasn't changed - we're still based on the Flickit system - but we are working on some stuff behind the scenes for an easier setting, which hopefully you won't notice where you're skating. Stuff like knowing to align you to a grind, knowing how high you can jump, and tweaking the variables. I think one of the first things we always wanted to be was the authentic skate game, and there is a learning curve that comes with that. For long-term fans of the game, we're not changing anything - in fact, we're adding a harder difficulty mode for you - but we want there to be things which make the game a little more inclusive elsewhere."

Skate's aging with grace, in other words: with the market-driven horrors of Skate It safely out of sight, the latest entry in the series is shaping up to be as smart, gimmick-free, and self-effacing as the first two instalments.