I downloaded and played the demo of Skate 2 today on our brand new XBox 360 (in black to match the decor). I was cautiously excited because the original Skate was, basically, one of my favourite games of all time. Sadly, I was right to be cautious: Skate 2 was ultimately very disappointing to me.

The opening glorifies the fact that you, the protagonist, just got out of jail. Now, fine fine, it’s just a narrative device not unlike the amnesia gambit to explain why you’re brand new. But, on the other hand, hey, it’s just not that cool. Maybe the full game illuminates the jail thing better.

More than this, the game just feels dour compared to the original. It makes a big deal of just how tough the town has become, with more security guards and various other anti-skating protections abounding. The other characters talk about what a drag it all is. The colour palette of the game is pretty brown and bland. Frankly, it’s depressing.

The original Skate presented me with a big open world, cheerfully lit by an everlasting sun, rather extraordinarily tolerant of skaters doing what they wanted, filled with happy, fun-loving skaters. I want to skate in that world, not in a gritty, grunge-y hell-hole.

Ah, the characterless characters of video games, eh? I’m encountering that old chestnut for the umpteenth time with Fable 2. The avatar in that game exhibits that ultimate blandness of not speaking. Ever. Now, this is a trade-off presumably. On the one hand, if your character doesn’t speak, then you’re more likely to be able to “inhabit” him. On the other hand, if he doesn’t speak, he loses a vast amount of expressiveness. Which is, of course, crucial to any idea of making a bridge between yourself and the character

So, in other games, like Gears of War, you get defined characters who have personalities and make wise-cracks and so on, and whom you control. But they also make it hard to make that bridge because they’re already someone else, and specifically not you.

A catch 22, then. If the character is too expressive there’s no room for you, if they’re not expressive enough, they seem too much like a stick-figure, a nobody.

I think that Skate goes an interesting direction which at least hints at some kind of solution space. In particular, it’s a non-speaking avatar who you can model on yourself (aesthetically, at least). But, at the same time, self-expression is built in in terms of selecting photographs of your skateboarder performing impressive tricks (and, for that matter, the performance of those tricks itself). By dodging speech as the primary mode of self-expression, Skate manages better than most games I can think of to convey a sense of ownership over the character.

After obsessively finishing Skate (twice), I’ve returned to Burnout: Paradise as my game of choice (well, also the only game I have I haven’t finished). I have to say that it’s lost considerable sheen in the comparison.

Most damaging is the fact that the two games are similar in the mechanic of choosing challenges: you drive/skate around until you get to the one you want to try out. The difference is that this “down time” in Skate is an opportunity to try various tricks out in a casual fashion, while in Burnout it’s just, well, driving.

The events themselves in Burnout just aren’t quite doing it for me, either. Unsurprisingly, they come down to holding down the accelerator and steering accurately at high speed. Skilled enough, perhaps, but not technical enough for me to enjoy as fully as I enjoyed Skate.

One thing I will say for Burnout, though, is that I still enjoy the “last second” victories. Of course, the “last second” losses are all the more painful.