SkateBIRD Xbox review: A feathery skateboarding game held back by flawed movement

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SkateBIRD Xbox review: A feathery skateboarding game held back by flawed movement

SkateBIRD is like taking an one-time school Tony Hawk game and gluing on a liberal helping of feathers and beaks.

Source: Drinking glass Lesser Games

SkateBIRD is all virtually Birb, a player-customized winged animal with a atypical (and unusual) passion: skateboarding. SkateBIRD asks the question "What if Tony the Hawk instead?" and scratches an itch for skateboarding game fans that take been missing a new game recently. The finished product is an accessible entry that combines goofy skateboarding and an unimportant plot with quondam-school collectibles and a killer soundtrack, and SkateBIRD does a lot of this pretty well.

In SkateBIRD, players have control of the aforementioned Birb, who can appear equally any number of avian species, complete with an adorable collection of hats, glasses, accessories, and more. Birb is surrounded by many birdbrained friends, and their Large Friend (read: human) lets Birb pursue their dream past transforming Big Friend'south one-sleeping accommodation apartment into a oasis for skateboarding. Big Friend has been interim strange recently, though, and Birb wants to help.

Birb and their friends demand to assist Large Friend both at home and at their work, resulting in a short merely quirky hazard beyond a variety of levels. If you lot're looking for a new coincidental skateboarding game, and then read on. SkateBIRD more often than not succeeds, despite how hard the elementary act of moving can be.

SkateBIRD

Bottom line: If y'all've ever desired to roleplay as a variety of avian creatures with a trend to pull off sick tricks on iv-wheeled boards, then SkateBIRD is basically your only option. This cute indie game successfully delivers a goofy skateboarding experience most of the time, simply annoying and plain inconsistent movement as well as some boring level design prevent SkateBIRD from existence not bad.

The Good

Birds are charming and ambrosial
Controls are relatively intuitive
Solid overall skateboarding feel
Great soundtrack

The Bad

Move is often frustrating and inconsistent
Level design can exist boring or unpolished
Missions and objectives can be unclear

SkateBIRD: What you'll similar

Source: Windows Fundamental | Drinking glass Bottom Games

SkateBIRD opens upwards by letting yous blueprint your very ain Birb, with a diverse range of birds to choose from, as well as various accessories with which to customize your feathery skateboarder. I was surprised by the options provided hither, and enjoyed creating my very own Birb with which to embark on skateboarding escapades. Immediately, you're let loose in Big Friend's flat, which has been not-and so-subtly taken over by handcrafted skateboarding half pipes, ramps, rails, and more.

Category	SkateBIRD
Title	SkateBIRD
Developer	Glass Bottom Games
Publisher	Glass Bottom Games
Genre	Skateboarding
Game size	three.3GB
Players	Singleplayer
Play time	5-10 hours
Xbox Game Pass	Yes (Xbox & PC)
Launch date	Sept. 16, 2022
Launch price	$20
Reviewed on	Xbox Serial X & PC

The outset of the game does a fair job walking you through the controls and how to play, and the controls are simple and intuitive. It's easy to get the hang of pulling off tricks and completing the first bones objectives SkateBIRD gives y'all, with generous jerk room for making mistakes. And so yous're shot right back to the one-time school Tony Hawk Secret games, where you lot're left to skateboard around a semi-open up-world skate park filled with diverse NPCs to engage with, each with their own personalities and missions.

SkateBIRD absolutely fully embraces the second half of its name.

SkateBIRD is at its best when y'all're enjoying information technology casually, with a simple and shallow story that still delivers with cheesy jokes, goofy plotlines, and an cool cast of characters that only make sense as birds. This is highlighted by several unique "abilities" that players take, like "Screm" (when Birb squawks), "Monch" (when Birb pretends to swallow something on the ground), "Air Ollie" (a double jump accompanied past frantic flaps), and lots of cute animations for turning your skateboard, pulling off tricks, and more than. SkateBIRD absolutely fully embraces the 2d half of its proper noun, letting you dive beak-beginning into a myriad of bird shenanigans.

Source: Glass Bottom Games

The old-schoolhouse vibe (aside from the bird theme) continues with a plethora of collectibles and secrets to observe hidden throughout SkateBIRD'due south various levels, which reward you with new cosmetic items like wear, skateboards, and wheels. The best collectibles, however, are the mixtapes, which unlock hidden tracks in SkateBIRD'southward soundtrack. While SkateBIRD's OST is good, and is correct in line with other indie games, these mixtapes unlock a multifariousness of punk and ska stone tracks that were surprisingly dandy.

SkateBIRD includes options for players that comprehend accessibility.

Not everyone will love this subconscious soundtrack as much as I did, probably (you should, though), simply SkateBIRD lets you customize your soundtrack on a per-rail level whenever y'all want. This was one of my favorite parts of SkateBIRD, which is unfortunate for Amazon Luna players. Those who elect to stream SkateBIRD through Amazon's service will have to give up the hidden soundtrack, as these mixtapes are relegated to "empty collectible" territory at Amazon'due south bidding. For everyone else, though, I strongly advise keeping an eye out for these oft-surreptitious mixtapes.

One thing I did profoundly appreciate when playing SkateBIRD was the comprehensive options provided to me. Besides being able to customize my soundtrack as I unlocked new tracks, SkateBIRD includes a bevy of options for players that embrace accessibility, including an FOV (field-of-view) slider on Xbox Series X|S, the power to tiresome downwards game time, disable the balancing mechanic for grinding and manuals, reducing the risk of bailing, and more. These kinds of options are ofttimes an afterthought for games, but might exist crucial for some players to savor the casual skateboarding feel that SkateBIRD seeks to offer.

SkateBIRD: What you won't similar

Source: Windows Key | Glass Bottom Games

If you recollect I had a lot of expert to say most SkateBIRD, then you're correct! SkateBIRD knows exactly what kind of experience it wants players to accept, and it does a pretty good job of making it happen. SkateBIRD isn't perfect, however, and was downright frustrating at times due to a few issues that all pile onto one mechanic: move.

While SkateBIRD'due south controls are relatively intuitive and easy to grasp, the act of moving around the map often ends in frustration and a demand to offset over one time again. Higher up all else, SkateBIRD feels inconsistent in its movements, then you can never exist certain exactly where Birb is going to end up one time you sew a one-half pipe or leap for a rail to grind on. When some missions later on require traversing across vertical maps using a diverseness of jumps and grinds, this inconsistency frequently leads to flat-out failure.

Speed in SkateBIRD is a problem too, and relies on the "FANCY" bar. Y'all can make full the FANCY bar by completing tricks and skillfully maneuvering across the maps, and your maximum speed increases equally the FANCY bar fills. This lets you pull off greater combos faster, and access different areas of the map with greater jumps and longer continuous grinds. Filling the FANCY bar, however, is as well incredibly inconsistent.

Every time I felt frustrated with SkateBIRD, it was always related to motility.

I ran into a persistent issue where the FANCY bar would freeze halfway through the "A" for long periods of time, wasting valuable seconds when attempting to finish missions. Even when this outcome wasn't happening, filling the FANCY bar at all was always a question of "What's going to work this time?" since the rate at which the FANCY bar filled appeared to be completely capricious at points.

Source: Windows Central | Drinking glass Bottom Games

Information technology was easy to completely lose all your progress with the FANCY bar likewise, only by falling off your board. While this makes sense on the surface, this was another part of SkateBIRD that was bluntly inconsistent. There were times where I was practically horizontal to the ground and however managed to stay on my lath without any issues, while I would graze a gentle incline on a ramp and after fall to the basis and lose my philharmonic or FANCY progress. Lowering the difficulty for bailing helped a little, just the bug remained.

Annoyances with movement in SkateBIRD were absolutely the highlight of my bug with the game. Smaller grievances include slightly boring and unpolished level design at points, especially with anything that curved (an understandable difficulty for game development, but notwithstanding critical for skateboarding). The mini-map to find missions was also hidden in the pause carte and was difficult to read, while objectives during missions were ofttimes hard to rail or discover. All of these are minor bug, however, as every time I felt frustrated with SkateBIRD, it was always related to motility.

SkateBIRD: Should y'all play it?

Source: Windows Central | Glass Bottom Games

If you're looking for a new skateboarding game that's a little closer to the Skate series or Tony Hawk's Cloak-and-dagger games than Tony Hawk'due south Pro Skater 1 + two, SkateBIRD is cute, funny, and is filled with sometime-school vibes (with modern accessibility amenities). A consequent bird theme and a killer punk and ska rock cloak-and-dagger soundtrack don't bring SkateBIRD all the way to greatness, however.

Movement on all fronts in SkateBIRD is frustrating, belying the intuitive controls that grade its base. Everything, including knowing what'south going to happen when you practise something, building up speed, and staying on your board, feels inconsistent in SkateBIRD and comprises the vast bulk of SkateBIRD'south problems.

At the stop of the 24-hour interval, SkateBIRD is yet a solid but flawed skateboarding game that offers upwardly to 10 hours of content for those looking to 100% the game, and potentially more for players who desire a fashion to skateboard (as a bird) in their free time without any commitments. Whether or not it'll exist considered 1 of the best Xbox games depends entirely on how much you lot fall in love with skateboarding birds.

SkateBIRD

Bottom line: SkateBIRD is nonstop, silly skateboarding fun with a great hidden soundtrack, where you happen to play as a bird instead of a human being. Still, inconsistent motion was a constant frustration in SkateBIRD, detracting from an otherwise solid casual game.

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Zachary Boddy

Zachary Boddy is the Minecraft Expert and a News Author for Windows Central, Android Fundamental, and iMore. They accept been gaming and writing for almost of their life, and take been freelancing for Windows Fundamental and its sister sites since 2022, with a focus on Xbox and PC gaming. You can discover Zachary on Twitter @BoddyZachary.