For the vast majority of you reading this, your local resort's season is done and dusted. You might not be able to afford camping in the lovely woods surrounding Mt. Hood or you aren't handy enough to build a backyard setup. If you're recovering from an injury or you just don't have much to do over the summer, you'll probably end up playing a fair share of video games. Now, I know Fortnite is sick (I play it all the time) and you've played Skate 2/3 more than you'd like to admit but I want to suggest 2 games you should play this summer when you have some downtime.

Session - PC only, Xbox Early Access coming Q3 2018

Download the demo.

Dev Description:

Inspired by the golden era of skateboarding, the early 90s and early 2000, Session's primary goal is to make you experience what skateboarding really is; an incredible sport where there are no other goals other than expressing your creativity and achieving success through hard work, perseverance and bits of madness for no one else other than yourself. The main purpose of the game is to live the sport in its entirety. Feel what it is to be a talented street skater. Explore and tame the concrete, film yourself, your friends and share your footage on the internet with the worldwide skateboarding community.

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/903898/SESSION--New-FREE-FLIP-Mode---First-Impressions

Footage above is of a barebones, dev park that is testing out the new catch mechanic in the game. Check out other clips here.

Since we are never getting a Skate 4, this is looking like the most likely replacement and I'm really stoked. The devs, based out of Montreal (Bishop, go hang out with them), are really dedicated to this project & I hope they don't blow it like SNOW did.

Having played Session for the past several months, it takes a bit of getting used to if you've only ever played Skate. In my opinion, the extra challenge that Session provides makes it really fun to learn simple tricks like tre flips, hardflips, ect and adds re-playability, especially if you can't skateboard worth shit.

Session is still in Alpha but the Beta release is on Xbox & Steam Early Access in Q3 of 2018.

Shredsauce

Play it now.

The obvious choice. Made by member Malcolm, Shredsauce was developed in his bedroom & is one of the best ski games ever. Maybe I'm biased but the fact that you have total character customization, a full park editor, multiplayer, and an offline version, is really impressive. It has come a long way from it's humble beginnings of 1 park, 1 character choice and below average character movements. We still need an afterbang landing mechanic Malcolm ;)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiwiOMvAhBJ/?taken-by=shredsauce