Backyard Skater E3 2004 Preshow First Look

While the Backyard Sports series has tackled traditional sports such as baseball, football, and basketball, Backyard Skater is the series' first attempt to take on a more extreme sport: skateboarding. However, this entry-level skateboarding game should definitely appeal to parents, since the signature Backyard Sports' kid-friendly gameplay will represent a safe alternative to the edgy, more-teenage-oriented skateboarding games on the market.

In Backyard Skater, you'll be able to skate around a number of bright and sunny 3D environments to pull off daring skateboarding tricks, like kickflips, backslides, ollies, and benihanas. In addition, there will be a variety of kid-oriented power-ups, including Molasses Time (which slows everything down), Tornado, and Hot Chocolate.

You can create your own skater or play as one of the 10 Backyard Kids, who appear throughout the Backyard Sports series. In keeping with the series' tradition of incorporating recognizable stars, you can also play as a kid version of pro skater Andy Macdonald. There will be three game modes, including a tour mode, in which you can pick up endorsements and sponsors from such companies as Melonhead Helmets.

The skating environments will include an urban neighborhood, a beach boardwalk, a medieval castle, rooftops, and an unlockable skatepark. Other unlockables will include new players, accessories, skateboards, and parks. The game will feature two-player minigames so that you can play against a friend. Backyard Skater is being developed by Humongous Entertainment and should ship in September of this year.