*Disclaimer: SkateBIRD review code was provided by Glass Bottom Games for the purposes of this review. That being said, all opinions expressed in this review are entirely that of the author.
Developed by a core team of just five people, SkateBIRD promised the world something bold, something new, something fun. In a 2021 plagued with viruses, Kissing Booth 3 and some pretty horrific news about seemingly every triple AAA publishing studio, SkateBIRD has never been needed more. I have never needed SkateBIRD more.
After just an hour with the game I knew I was safe. It turns out, a game about skateboarding birds is pretty damn funny. But that humour might not last you the entire run-time.
Huh, That Bird’s On a Skateboard… That’s Pretty Rad
Before getting the chance to play SkateBIRD, I knew a few things about the game; it had a tiny development team, it was about skateboarding birds, and the tone of the game looked really unique. What I wasn’t expecting was a full-blown bird character-customisation screen. The tone of SkateBIRD is set right here, in these opening moments. Flicking through the ridiculously extensive 39-species of birds and choosing which scarves, hats, glasses or accessories I wanted my little boy to adorn immediately gave me the impression that this game has one express purpose: to make you smile. It sounds cheesy, but as I alluded to up top, I think we could use a little cheesy right now. And, oh boy, does it get cheesy.
SkateBIRD prides itself on its humorous writing, and rightfully so. Between each mission, your little create-a-bird can be seen conversing with his other bird friends during small dialogue cutaways. Now, humour is subjective and all that, but I loved practically every one of these interactions. From Millennial existential dread to Gen-Z optimistic nihilism, these birds don’t let up. And I never wanted them to. In my ~6 hours with the game, I found myself laughing (genuinely laughing not just exhaling more noticeably) at least once every two or three interactions. This is really where SkateBIRD shines for me. It’s self-awareness and unique contemporary lens gives it a charming genuineness that I didn’t see coming, and I’m sure I’ll still be thinking about for weeks.
This charming humour extends to the missions themselves. Throughout your time with SkateBIRD you’ll be given various missions by your wacky bird entourage. These missions range from the standard tutorial-like “Do trick x times” to collecting glowing letters around the environment, achieving combos of certain amounts, and picking up objects around the map; classic skateboard game stuff. But what sets SkateBIRD‘s missions apart from its countless predecessors is, once again, its surprisingly witty writing.
The context surrounding each mission is where you’ll find the variety in this game. For example, one of the opening missions sees you collecting forks, and throwing yourself into the window to “Open it”. Another sees a wall-street bird, dressed in a full suit, asking you to collect the letters that spell “MONEY”. While the objectives still fall under the classic “Collect x things in a time limit”, the dialogue bookends and the absurd context given were enough to make me forget about the game’s repetitiveness, at least for a time.
Birby’s First Skateboarding Game
What’s even more surprising than the oddly expansive customisation menu is that SkateBIRD is actually a pretty mechanically-solid game. Now, before you go swooping off excitedly, it’s pretty important to temper your expectations. This game was made by a handful of people, with a tiny budget, with two-thirds of the game’s development occurring during a pandemic. The fact your bird doesn’t immediately fall over is impressive enough.
While the mechanics likely won’t grab the attention of your average Pro Skater or Skate fan, SkateBIRD actually works very well as an introductory skateboarding game. The controls are pretty simple, with tricks only requiring one button press each. Tutorials are concise and clear, with trick descriptions and tips available at the tap of a button. Your board can be reset instantly with the “A” button, giving you practically no punishment for failing a trick or stunt. The game as a whole is actually pretty forgiving, with the mission timer always being plentiful, the objective marker always pointing you in the right direction, and the ability to set custom reset points being given to you in just the second stage.
The skating mechanics themselves also feel fairly responsive and suitably weighty, with each input of the controller offering a rhythmic murmur as your little bird creation effortlessly ollies and flips his board with his stubby little feet. Gaining momentum on your board feels intuitive and natural; all you have to do is push “Up” and let your little bird zoom his way around the environment.
It’s not all smooth skating, though. Despite the controls being intuitive and simple, even for beginners, controlling your bird around smaller, tighter environments can be a nightmare. The turning arc in this game is very wide, leading you to overshoot even the greatest of turns. When you’re in some of the more claustrophobic environments (like the server room, for instance), this turning arc becomes non-existent. The majority of your playtime in these areas will be spent taking your sweet time trying to tentatively navigate your way around tight twists and turns that have no place in this otherwise very freeing game. To make matters worse, if your board so much as taps a wall your little bird goes flying off. Admittedly, this is pretty hilarious the first, like, thirty times it happens. But upon seeing your little bird flail around for the thirty-first time, something snaps inside.
Stumbling Out of the Nest
Unfortunately, all good birds must come to an end. SkateBIRD suffers from quite a few technical issues; some minor inconveniences, some pretty game-breaking. Let’s start with one that was just funny: my bird’s cape never stopped getting stuck in his back. It just kept flailing in the wind. Alright that was that, now let’s get on to the more disappointing technical aspects of the game.
SkateBIRD‘s camera is, in all seriousness, broken. If you so much as glance off a wall, it is guaranteed that the camera will flip in any and every possible direction, vertically, horizontally and backwards, resetting your bird’s position every time. In the game’s more open environments (like my favourite area, the office), this becomes less of a problem. It still rears its head every ten minutes or so, but not nearly as much as when you’re zooming through tighter areas, where the camera will get stuck on every single object in your path. This, as you can imagine, leads to a pretty frustrating gameplay experience. No amount of witty pop-culture humour can alleviate the stress of constantly fighting your camera.
Wall collision, in general, can be a tad buggy. Often I’d find myself reaching top speed, barrelling furiously towards a ramp, only to be mysteriously catapulted off my board, or, on rare occasion, I’d be propelled vertically up the wall, sticking to it sideways in some kind of Matrix homage. This tends to happen if you go at a ramp from an angle; the game seems to get confused and thinks that you should either be anywhere but the wall, or nowhere but the wall.
But, by far the most personally frustrating technical issue I had was SkateBIRD losing over an hour of my progress. I paused my game, after a gruelling hour or so trying to frantically beat the penultimate stage (the aforementioned server room), got myself a coffee, and tried to un-pause the game, only to find that the game had frozen, and upon start-up, had lost that entire stage’s progress. For reasons mentioned throughout this review, that server room mission sucks, and (with the day I was having) the idea of playing it again made me tear up a little.
Is It a Bird? Is It a Plane? I Think It’s a Bird? It’s Hard To Tell
SkateBIRD, on the whole, doesn’t look too hot. The Field of View is pretty rough, making everything a few metres in front of you very fuzzy. The User-Interface is also pretty lacklustre, with simple plain white text font that screams Xbox 360 Arcade game. The graphics themselves also fall into that camp, appearing pretty flat and lifeless with almost no shading. The colour palette across the game is similarly dull, with even the brightest pinks and greens appearing oddly washed out. Environmental design quality varies pretty heavily across the game’s six stages, with some (like the initial bedroom area) containing a range of varied environmental objects and set dressings, while others (like the rooftop) contain merely some brick walls, air vents, and grey ramps. But, then again, maybe I just have a soft spot for zipping through an absurdly upscaled bedroom. I blame the PS1’s Toy Story 2 and Stuart Little 2.
Despite my grievances with SkateBIRD‘s presentation, it’s important that I recognise, again, the merits of this game, because there are plenty. SkateBIRD‘s lacklustre presentation doesn’t irritate or annoy me, it disappoints me. Not because the game looks outdated, but because the game’s overall tone and style isn’t fully represented by the visuals on screen (for the most part). I didn’t mention the blurry bird character models in the previous paragraph because they all convey the tone and style of the game. The washed out colours of each environment, on the other hand, don’t. I can tell the devs knew what kind of game they wanted to make, the cute 16-bit loading screen of a bird flipping his skateboard tells me that much. So it’s just a shame that the actual game’s presentation doesn’t really live up to it.
Doesn’t Quite Soar
I would love nothing more than to give SkateBIRD a top-end score. But, unfortunately, I just can’t. While the ideas are clearly there, and the talent is certainly there, the unfortunate truth is that SkateBIRD just isn’t a AAA game with complex mechanics, jaw-dropping visuals, or a theme-rich narrative.
But that’s okay. SkateBIRD doesn’t need to be more than what it is. Sure, there are quite a few technical issues currently (and that’s on Xbox) and the presentation of the game doesn’t match the clear intentions of the team behind it, but SkateBIRD is a downright fun, charming, and funny little game that deserves at least a few hours of your time.
Final Verdict: 7/10
Words By Cameron Swan