Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble (1990) NES Game Review

Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble
Developed by: Electronic Arts
Published by: Electronic Arts
Released in: September 1990 (NA)

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” – Aggro Eddie, Skate or Die 2

Last week, we reviewed the first Skate or Die game. You can read it here, but to summarize: I did not like it. This week we’re looking at the NES exclusive sequel, Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble. It can’t be any worse than the first one.

…Right?

Let’s start with the good points. Upon booting up Skate or Die 2, players are immediately blasted with the most 1990’s video game tune conceived by man. Give it a listen here, and marvel at what maestros are capable of, duderino. But the mixtape swapping is gonna have to wait until after the function (“the function,” in this case, being this review, you see). We have more pressing, potentially tubular matters to attend to.

The first Skate or Die was a mini-game compilation (ick), while SoD2 is an action/platformer/easter egg hunt/abomination-a-thon hybrid. After your ass gets kicked by that RAD theme song, the game opens on a cutscene that gives Ninja Gaiden a run for its money in its depth and scope.

I won’t spoil the multi-layered intricacies of the gripping plot, but it begins with the protagonist squishing the mayor’s wife’s poodle under his skateboard. This accidental poochicide causes the mayor to ban all skating, which pushes our plucky hero – a kid who looks less like a sk8r boi and more like Beaver Cleaver’s well-meaning neighbour – into action. No lie, wanting to see the next scene was what kept me going through the game’s levels much of the time. If you’ve got any love in your heart for 1990’s cheese, you will like these cutscenes.

Unfortunately, that’s it for the good parts. Let’s get into the bad. And not in the 80’s Michael Jackson definition of bad. The more ubiquitous one, meaning the opposite of good.

Skate or Die 2 is one of those old school games that’s only four levels long, but those levels are some of the most punishing BS you’ll ever suffer through on your Nintendo Entertainment System. The controls are, for lack of a better word, dogshit. Maybe this is the mayor’s wife’s poodle exacting revenge?

Get this: you have to tap the direction you want to go in multiple times to build momentum like a real skateboard, but with none of the fun. Thanks to this, moving up or down is so much more awkward than simply moving around on a 2D plane should ever be. And joyous day, bumping into anything – enemies, walls, slight cracks in the road, grains of sand (seriously, none of these are jokes) – will result in you screeching to a halt. You will fall off your board, lose health, and have to wait a laborious few seconds for your skater to amble back up off the pavement. The same thing will happen if you fall from a two-inch drop, too. Thanks to the constant struggle of the controls and intentionally obnoxious environments, you will take a lot of hits. Thus, you will waste your precious time frequently. I don’t know any other surfer dude lingo outside of the basic stuff like “bummer,” but “bummer” does the job quite well.

Now that you know the pain and suffering one must endure to do something as simple as move through Skate or Die 2, let’s dissect each level.

“I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.” – Rodney Recloose, Skate or Die 2

Level 1 is the mean streets of…wherever this is supposed to be, USA. It has evil skaters, dragons who live in the sewers, and many a door. The goal is to go through all of these doors and locate the mayor’s wife. And then you have to end her. It wasn’t enough to squish the dog. She’s gotta go, too. It’s bad for all of those control-based gripes above, but not in a way that’s interesting yet. Let’s move on.

Level 2 is the mall. Your player character does something no skater has ever done before: he gets a job. There’s a lot of that goofball 90’s humour here, with most of the shops having ridiculous names. I liked that the “nutritious foods store” was out of business next to the pizza joint, and I desperately wish those little golden flakes of personality were enough the whole experience. Unfortunately, the gameplay was not content with remaining at the level of “deeply troubling,” and has dipped into the abyssal territory of “psychologically damaging.”

You have to skate through two floors of the mall, making pointless deliveries between shops. Simple enough, but your board is extra slow on this level, because you’re indoors, I guess? The fun never begins. The evil skaters from Level 1 followed you inside, but the real villain of the level is the 2 minute time limit you’re granted for each delivery. Those two minutes move in rapid-fire seconds that make no logistic sense. Making every delivery in a timely manner takes a lot of practice, and is not enjoyable in any sense of the word. Learning the mall layout is a must. Or, failing that, turning off the game and doing something more substantial is a must. Would you believe this is the best level in the game? Doesn’t that scare you? It scares me.

“I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face.” – Lester Recloose, Skate or Die 2

Level 3 is a beach filled with speedo-wearing muscle dudes, rollerblading chicks, and crabs that want you dead. On a basic level, this is what I would expect from a game called Skate or Die, broski! A day at the beach, shaka! Unfortunately, you will do the dying half of the title much much much much much MUCH more on this level. You have to collect these papers scattered around, which feels borderline impossible. You don’t just skate through them, as logic in a competently made game would dictate. You have to run into them at a certain angle to actually get ’em. I made due by jumping around wildly until the thing went into my inventory, trying not to get hit by the constant onslaught of shite flying your way all the while.

To add insult to injury, if you take too long to collect the pages, they blow away in the wind. Then you have to give chase before they blow to the end of the level. If even ONE of these little shitheaps beats you to the end of the level, it’s game over. I don’t know how many there were. Too many. This was true pain. I was miserable by this point; I went from being so-so on Skate or Die 2 to straight up hating it around here. Now’s a good time to mention that continues are finite. You’ll start to feel the gravity of that design choice by this level, believe me.

The final level is sadism in video game format. Whoever made it hated children, or skating, or skating children. I don’t know who was responsible for this, but it felt like a human rights violation, and I think we should throw them to the mercy of the Geneva Convention.

It’s a maze, but it’s the maze to end all mazes.

LOOK AT HOW LONG THIS THING IS:

WHAT??????

The word for it is “cruel.” I can’t believe someone would do this to poor, unsuspecting kids. Or poor, unsuspecting, me. Even with a walkthrough, it felt like it took hours to navigate. But I can’t tell if it actually took that long, or if it just felt that long, like, on a cerebral level. Psychologists could use this level as a sanity test; if you give up after a few minutes, your brain works okay. If you actually stick with it, you should be institutionalized. I’m saying I should be institutionalized. This is a cry for help. Please.

Outside of the monotony of navigating the maze, it’s not terribly difficult, believe it or not. There’s tons of health refills scattered around, and holding Down and B makes your guy invincible (at the cost of locking into whatever direction you were heading in), which will help with the rooms swarming with punks shooting at you. What’s up with so many middling-to-bad NES games ending with a room maze, anyway? These have never, ever been good. Do games still do this? I can’t think of a recent one I’ve played that has. I hope to god this is something the industry has learned over the years.

And now for the climax. The final boss is this bald asshole called Icepick whose been annoying you and your friends periodically throughout the game. He’s holding your girlfriend hostage, a mondo babe skater chick who looks like she managed to escaped the long reach of the Walt Disney parks:

All you gotta do too win is shoot him a bunch. You’ll beat him long before he can kill you. It’s mercifully easy.

And then it’s over.

“The meaning of life is that it stops.” – Icepick, Skate or Die 2

Skate or Die 2 sucks shit. I hated it with every fibre of my being. One of the worst NES games I’ve suffered through to date. It made me laugh once or twice, but that’s not enough to save it from getting a stone cold 1 out of 10 from me. I’m sure that Skate or Die 2 would wear this rating on its chest with a “whatever brah” flavoured air of faux nonchalance. The truth of the matter, however, is that it could not stop its crying on the inside. The tears flowed freely as realization dawns. All it wants is to be accepted by the wide-eyed children of decades past who only yearned for new experiences. Like all things, it simply wants to experience love. But it can’t even achieve that. It, in fact, will never achieve anything. I’m gonna go institutionalize myself now. Bye.

Final score: