Skate Attack (PS2)

As a publisher, Midas were famous mainly for two things: localising occasionally interesting Japanese budget games, and also publishing mostly-terrible original budget games. Skate Attack isn't one of the former, so my hopes for it weren't high. But I tried it anyway, being the fair-minded person that I am, and for a little while, I was pleasantly surprised! On initial inspection, this seems like not just a competent game, but one that's actually fun to play! It's a skateboarding game that mostly plays and feels a lot like the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games at the most basic level. You skate around, there's quarter pipes to launch you up into the air, doing flip tricks with the square button, and grab tricks with the circle. There's also lots of rails and ledges to grind on, though Skate Attack uses R1 for this, rather than triangle. You can even do a manual upon landing, to lengthen your combos! Aesthetically, it clearly takes a lot of influence from Jet Set Radio, being set in a…