It’s a unique presentation for a genre that often requires little more than “do this trick” or “collect these letters”. For example, the first map hands you a mission that sees you tasked with collecting enough plastic forks to wedge open a window for some fresh air. Missions traditionally involve you collecting items such as sticky notes or phone chargers, but occasionally get a little more complex. Cue an initial environment that’s somewhat Micro Machines or even Katamari-esque in which humbly-sized items such as pizza boxes and magazines tower over you. The story goes that you don’t see your Big Friend (one of those aforementioned human people) as often as you used to, and you set out to tidy their frankly disgusting room by using your trusty board.

That charm extends to the game itself, of course, both in the environments you’ll encounter and the characters you’ll meet along the way. And it kinda succeeds! I’ve never cared about a starling before, but slap a Russian winter hat, ski goggles, rainbow scarf, bumbag and cape on one and I’ll protect it with my life, apparently. From being able to choose from a frankly dizzying selection of bird types to control (this only affects how your character looks) to a further seven cosmetic choices that can combine for dozens of different looks, it’s obvious SkateBIRD wants you to care about that bird. The first of those comes in the character personalisation options you are presented with upon starting the game. By eschewing the usual avatars you control in skate games – humans – SkateBIRD is able to step outwith some of the parameters and conventions that you would normally associate with actual people. You can probably tell from the trailer, but SkateBIRD‘s unique selling point is its charm, and the finished product has bundles of it. Lo and behold, here come Glass Bottom Games with the game that could potentially fix that for me with the release of SkateBIRD, a game that puts you into the talons of a small bird on a mission to reunite with an estranged big friend via the medium of skateboarding. If I’m honest though, they’ve all been missing one thing – feathers.

SSX, Skate, Tony Hawk and even 2D variants like Olli Olli have all scratched that itch for me over the years.

No, I mean games that make you stand on a board and travel at great pace down hills or through streets, all while asking you to pull off elaborate tricks. No, I don’t mean Monopoly or Cluedo or the like.

Skatebird ps4