At the same time, players have the ability to navigate Skatebird at their own pace, and ignore or abandon a quest without any sort of penalty. The quests are accompanied by cut scenes involving various other birds in ridiculous accessories, with adorably written dialogue that is sure to be memed once the game is widely released. While that narrative adds a necessary and endearing driving force behind the game's activities, something that developers Glass Bottom Games seemed to recognize, as the story mode was only first teased in May of last year when announcing the overall game would be delayed. The game takes players to an array of settings, beginning with a giant skate park made out of household objects in the human's room. After players customize their own avian avatars, they take up skateboarding to try to improve the human's life, either by completing menial tasks or just reigniting their love for skateboarding. It wouldn’t be so bad if unlocking more levels didn’t rely on completing these goals.SkateBIRD, referred to hereafter as simply Skatebird, lets players into the world of small birds, who are the pets of an unnamed and absent human owner who is busy at their new job. When you’re moving around, they’re small colour blobs or you’ll only see them because a button prompt shows on the screen.

The bigger difficulty is finding your bird friends in the first place. I liked that there is a guide arrow/bird to point you towards objectives, as it’s not always clear where you have to go. It’s at its worst when you’re in a more confined space, combined with the controls, and it’s just not fun.Īs you skate around each area, birds will offer you missions to complete. Replace them with a cute little bird, and it becomes chaos. Once again, it’s likely easier when you’re having a camera follow a person skateboard. Once again, the accessibility settings can help alleviate some of the frustrations, but it’s still not 100%. Sometimes you’ll emerge unscathed from tricks that should have knocked you off the board, then other times you’ll fall over just because. Something you’ll notice almost straight away is that SkateBIRD is inconsistent with what will and won’t knock you off of your board. The accessibility settings can help reduce the number of buttons required or give you a more forgiving time to land tricks. In fact, if you don’t want the meter at all, you can turn it off. One thing I did enjoy was the game is more generous with the balance meter on moves. Way too often, it would mean I’d overshoot a landing, or it didn’t get enough air, which sucks when trying to nab some of those collectibles. Flapping your wings does give you a little boost upwards or can carry you forward further, but it’s often at your detriment.

Only it doesn’t work well when you have to control that bird. I understand it’s part of the whole playing as a bird deal they are little things with wings flapping around. Unlike steering a human skater around, controlling your little bird is an ongoing nightmare.

The game is also great for helping you get used to the button prompts, which you can turn off if you don’t want too much guidance. SkateBIRD thankfully adopts a similar control scheme to the Tony Hawk games, making it easier to jump into if you’ve played any. Whereas Tony Hawk games would have you completing typical objectives for each level, SkateBIRD will give you seemingly random ones.

You can, of course, take your time and explore, finding more bird accessories and music tracks to unlock. You’ll want to pick up missions when you can because it’s how you open up more levels. Because it’s so open, it also makes it hard to see where the mission-giving/story-progressing birds are around the level. The large open spaces feel empty, and getting around the levels takes more time than you’d want in a skating game. It’s fun seeing what’s been used to make the skateparks on a small scale.īecause you’re just a tiny bird, it’s understandable that the spaces are so big, but they feel a little too big. Skate parks made around the mundane human world are of course much bigger for a budgie. Skating around in the human world, reminded me of playing Micro Machines way back when (and it’s about time for another Micro Machines game). It’s also the most likely thing that grabbed your attention about the game a little bird on a skateboard. Finally, it’s 2021, and after some all-too-common Covid related delays, you can get out your bird-sized skateboard and get ready to SkateBIRD!Īs I already mentioned, SkateBIRD is too cute for its own good. It was absurd and way too cute, and it was a must-have when it came out. SkateBIRD first showed up in 2018, quickly grabbing attention with the simple combination of a little bird riding a little skateboard.

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