Technologies

Skate Hands-On Preview: I Think It Might Be the Perfect Free-to-Play Game

The new setting of San Vansterdam is bustling with life and community, and that just feels right.

It’s been nearly a decade and a half since the last Skate game was released, but veterans won’t have to wait much longer to tear up the streets once again. The next entry in the arcade-y skateboarding series launches into early access on Sept. 16.

The franchise reboot (just named «Skate») was developed by Full Circle, a studio composed of much of the same talent that worked on the original games.

After a long drought, skateboarding game fans have dined well on the compilation remakes of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, along with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4. The Skate series has always been a bit different, emphasizing freeform skating with its unique control scheme of flicking the controller joysticks in different directions to achieve tricks, which has been faithfully rebuilt in the new game.

Even so, many fans of the series who would be otherwise excited for its return have their hackles raised, and I can’t blame them.

That’s because Skate is launching as a free-to-play, mainly online game in the «live service» fashion, with plans to continue releasing content for players to earn or buy. That might be a red flag for fans of the older offline single-player games, who may have grown weary of live service games that pressure players to play with limited-time events and to buy rare in-game items.

But after getting the chance to play Skate alongside dozens of other press members and influencers during an online prelaunch preview, I’m hopeful this might be one of the best examples of how live service games can work for developers and gamers alike. It feels like an experiment that developers poured their heart and soul into.

Community, collaboration and nailing tricks with your friends

The developer Full Circle aims to keep player freedom at the core of the new Skate game. The setting is the sprawling fictional city of San Vansterdam, designed to allow you to pull off whatever trick you want, wherever you want, whenever you want. Every street corner has some sort of attraction that implicitly encourages you to get big air, grind a long rail or climb a building to soar your board through the skies.

The game’s simple promise of letting players make their own fun at every juncture is a return to the series’ roots. The reason it works so well is that you’re surrounded by dozens of other players exploring the world, too.

Dumping 150 players into an open-world sandbox and letting them do their own thing is an inspired way to build a community. Skaters in real life are collaborative — they egg each other on and lift each other up as they work at the next big trick — and that applies to this virtual world just as well.

During my preview time in San Vansterdam, I played with only a couple of dozen other players at any given time, and it was an electric experience. It was awesome to watch skilled players pull off tricks (and then flounder to try and replicate their motions) before peeling off in another direction.

Skate is the rare game where I didn’t feel like I needed an objective to guide my gameplay, mainly because I was having lots of stupid fun on my own. At one point, I discovered players rolling around off their boards, and I joined them in an impromptu tumbling conga line. Another time, I watched a player parkour up a building and followed their lead, discovering an entirely new area to do tricks above the hustle and bustle of the street.

My favorite moment was made possible by the new spectate feature. With this feature, I could watch nearby players do their thing and instantly teleport to them if I decided to join in on the action.

While I was flicking through perspectives, I discovered one player standing on top of a bridge in the northeast corner of the map. They were jumping off and ragdolling toward a bronze anchor statue, trying to thread the needle through the hole at the top.

I took part and made several dozen attempts at the base jump before making it through the hole myself, but not without my character slamming his head into the statue with a comically loud bang.

As Skate gets its early access release, I imagine an emerging community working together to find the most entertaining trick spots in San Vansterdam. The only thing more entertaining than trying to nail a trick is doing so while watching half a dozen randoms (and your friends) flounder around with you.

Will the game appeal to newcomers and veterans alike?

As a Skate first-timer and someone whose skateboarding experience mostly entails watching my brother learn to ollie and kickflip, I was worried that I might be in over my head.

Luckily, I was able to choose between the original dual-stick-flicking control scheme and a simpler, modern one that makes it easier to focus on landing tricks. There’s still a bit of a learning curve, but I was able to get on the board and nail some rudimentary moves to get me properly moving around the city after the tutorial wrapped up.

While I wasn’t the biggest fan of how my player character looked (he appeared soulless no matter how hard I tried to meddle with his face), I enjoyed how completing challenges in the open world would directly unlock more outfit options — though I suspect the best clothing will be locked to the purely cosmetic microtransactions that will support the game at launch.

As I donned a tangerine shirt and shorts and stuck a cherry pattern on my board, I felt like I was showing off my in-game experiences to other players. Likewise, their own avatar customization told me a story about their time with Skate.

While the world of San Vansterdam was built with player freedom in mind, the art style doesn’t reflect the Skate games that veterans have come to love and revere. Everything is minimalist, bright and sanitized. The city feels like it belongs in Mirror’s Edge rather than an arcade-style skateboarding game, a genre that embraces the grit and graffiti of street culture.

There are no realistic skateparks or grimy aqueducts to grind down. Gone are the Hall of Meat replays that would highlight gnarly bails and broken bones. And if you’re looking for familiar faces in the world of professional skateboarding, like those featured in the Tony Hawk games, you aren’t going to find them here.

Longtime fans will likely have their gripes with some of these choices, and those aren’t easy fixes. You can’t just change an entire art style on a whim, even if you can sign a deal to license pro skaters to feature in your game.

It remains to be seen if these will be deal-breakers for the vets, but I’ll say this much: Skate is made with a lot of love. The classic flick-it control scheme from the old games was rebuilt from the ground up just to cater to the old heads who want to play the same Skate they’ve known for years.

As an early access live service game, Skate has room to grow and develop according to its fans’ wants and needs. If Full Circle keeps an ear to the ground and addresses any pain points that arise early on, I think this may become a perennial fan-favorite.

Skate will be launched into early access on Sept. 16, releasing concurrently on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. The game will support cross-platform play and cross-progression.

Technologies

Blue Origin New Glenn Mission NG-3: Everything That Happened in 8 Minutes

Technologies

I Tried an Air Purifier Designed to Filter Out Weed and Cigarette Smoke

Just because you celebrate 420 doesn’t mean you want the smell of smoke. A new specialty filter from GermGuardian helps keep things fresh.

In the US and globally, April 20 has become an unofficial holiday for weed smokers. While vaping, gummies and edibles are increasingly popular, a fair number of people still light up for a smoke, and that can result in a lingering odor many find unpleasant.

I’m one of those people, and GermGuardian’s new FLT420B air purifier filter is designed to remove cannabis smoke more effectively than standard air purifier filters.
«As cannabis use becomes more widely accepted, we recognized a real gap in the market for a filter purpose-built to tackle cannabis smoke odors, not just mask them,» said Rukky Ojakovo, senior director of heaters and air quality at Guardian Technologies. «In our two-week in-home test, over 90% of users rated it very effective at reducing cannabis odor.»

I’ve been using the FLT420B filter in my home with a GermGuardian AC4880B air purifier for several weeks now, and I’ve been impressed with just how effectively it tackles smoke odors. In my case, the odor is more from cigarette smoke than marijuana (I had the misfortune of indoor smokers moving into the unit below me). The FLT420B filter has been effective at tackling the smell.

«While the FLT420B was engineered specifically for cannabis smoke, its advanced odor-control media targets VOCs [volatile organic compounds] broadly, making it effective against other herbal smoke as well,» Ojakovo told me over email.

According to GermGuardian, the filter is 300 times more effective than standard HEPA smoke filters and targets odor-causing VOCs at the «molecular» level. The company says it can remove cannabis odor within 90 minutes. Though I’m not a marijuana smoker myself — I’m very sensitive to bad odors, and I have two asthmatic cats — I’m planning on testing this soon by using cannabis-scented incense sticks.

In the meantime, to test this, I placed the entire AC4880B air purifier unit, with the smoke filter installed, in a closet in my wife’s office and shut the door. Using the UV-C sanitizing light, which can generate a small amount of safe ozone, the entire closet was effectively deodorized in about 24 hours.

I asked Ojakovo what played the largest role in clearing the odor from the closet. The filter was the primary driver.

«The FLT420B’s advanced odor-control media is specifically designed to capture VOCs and lingering odors like cigarette smoke,» Ojakovo said. «The UV-C light is great for reducing airborne bacteria, germs, and mold spores, but is less targeted toward chemical-based smoke odors specifically.»

Interestingly, even after I pulled it out of the closet, the air inside has stayed deodorized, though sealing gaps and cracks likely helped.

To further test how well the filter cleared smells, I moved the GermGuardian unit to my galley kitchen and placed it by my trash cans. There’s not much ventilation in there, and I have a gas range, so there are plenty of VOCs. I’ve left it there for over a week now, and since then, I’ve noticed a distinct reduction in stale cooking smells and a general improvement in air quality, verified by an air quality monitor.

«Since the FLT420B is designed to tackle VOCs, it can certainly help with cooking-related odors and gases,» said Ojakovo, while also pointing out that the company sells filters designed for kitchen use specifically. «For heavier kitchen use near a gas range, we’d recommend exploring our broader lineup of filters, designed for specific use cases.»

Now, if you suffer from allergies, you may want to consider a different air purifier model, but for VOCs, it’s been one of the more effective ones I’ve used.

Price and availability

The FLT420B will work with GermGuardian’s most widely used air purifiers, including the AC4880, AC4825E, AC4300, AC4825, AC4870, AC4820, AC4900, AC4850PT, CDAP4500 and AP2200CA. If you own one of those models, it’s simply a matter of purchasing the FLT420B filter from Amazon (currently out of stock) or directly from Guardian Technologies for $40.

If you’re a new customer, you can buy the model with the features you prefer and pair it with a filter that suits your use case.

Editor’s note: While cannabis has been legalized for medical and even recreational use in some states, marijuana and products containing THC are still a Schedule I drug under US federal law. Always exercise caution and judgment when consuming cannabis or any other controlled substance.

Technologies

‘Han Solo Wants to Be Me’: Artemis II’s Victor Glover on Flying the Orion

CNET spoke with the Artemis II astronaut and pilot about seeing parts of the moon that no other human has seen before and getting to manually fly a spacecraft.

Even if you’re 250,000 miles from Earth, sleep is important. However, for all the life-sustaining accoutrements aboard the Orion spacecraft, the capsule lacked bedrooms, leaving the four-person Artemis II crew with a truly bizarre sleeping arrangement.

«I slept really close to an air conditioning vent. And so I’d wake up and I just see this big hunk of metal,» Glover told CNET during a video call. «And it was like, ‘Oh, I’m in space. I am weightless.'»

Sleep wasn’t just a means for the astronauts to recharge; it also grounded them during their historic journey. Glover explained, «What really resonated with me is we’re also humans. It’s like camping, and this is a very important part of this journey.»

Artemis II was the first crewed mission to the moon in over 50 years. It followed Artemis I, a 2022 uncrewed mission that was the first for NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The goal for Artemis II was to have a crew test the spacecraft, life support systems, the SLS rocket and the procedures needed for future lunar missions that will involve landing on the moon and eventually building a base there.

Glover, the Orion’s pilot, along with commander Reid Wiseman and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, made up the Artemis II crew. The mission made a lot of history. It’s the first time a woman, a Black man or a Canadian has journeyed to the moon. The four Artemis II astronauts traveled 252,756 miles from Earth, farther than any other human being, surpassing the record set by the 1970 Apollo 13 mission.

This wasn’t Glover’s first time in space. In 2020, with a Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff, he piloted the Crew Dragon capsule to and from the International Space Station for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission, spending over 167 days in space. But Artemis II gave Glover the opportunity to be the first to fly the Orion, a new vehicle designed for Artemis missions. For the majority of the nearly 10-day journey, Orion was on autopilot. But Glover had several opportunities to take manual control of the spacecraft to test its handling.

«It was such a treat and a joy,» Glover said about flying the Orion. «It was a test pilot’s dream to fly a new spaceship for the first time by hand.»

Even after spending time training to fly in a simulator back on Earth, he was surprised by how responsive the Orion’s hand controller was and by the clarity of the cameras, used to maneuver the craft around the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage that holds the fuel for the upper stage of liftoff. He said the view from the cameras and monitors was like «looking out a window.»

When I asked Glover if he felt like Han Solo when piloting the Orion, he retorted, «Han Solo wants to be me when he grows up!» Throughout my interview, Glover was gracious, passionate and funny.

«I get to do stuff that’s cooler than Han Solo. I mean, just the fact that it’s real, it’s better.»

While landing on the moon wasn’t in the cards for this trip, the Orion crew traveled about 4,000 miles beyond the moon, allowing them to see parts of the moon that had never been seen before. For comparison, Apollo missions flew about 70 miles above the moon to make landings, limiting how much of it they could actually see.

The images that Glover and the crew took of the moon were stunning. Shots like the Earthset were a reminder of how beautiful our planet is and our place within the solar system. The astronauts even witnessed a total solar eclipse as they rounded the far side of the moon. But none of the photos they took compares to what they saw, according to Glover.

«I could see the curvature of the moon. Depth is just one aspect that you cannot see in the pictures. But here’s the other thing, the pictures lack scale.»

For the lunar flyby, the Orion was moving fast: 60,863 mph relative to Earth, but only 3,139 mph relative to the moon, according to NASA. The speed meant the shadows across the surface were constantly morphing into different shapes. Glover was particularly enamored with the moon’s terminator, where the light and dark sides of the moon meet. The terminator isn’t fixed and depends on the moon’s position relative to the sun. As Orion moved, it transformed into various shapes that looked like letters of the alphabet.

«People know, I fell in love with the terminator when I got to see the real one up close. I watched the terminator go from a letter C to a letter D, which means there was a point when the moon was half light, half dark. It was pointing right at me.»

Artemis II’s lunar flyby was a highlight of the journey for many of us on Earth, in part because we could watch it in real time on streaming services like Netflix. Nearly the entire mission was streamed live on NASA’s website and YouTube channel, making it feel like a reality show. One minute you’re watching the crew eat, work out, take photos of the moon; the next, there’s a random jar of Nutella floating by one of the cameras. I asked Glover whether it felt like he was on a TV show while on the Orion.

«It did not feel like a reality show on my end,» said Glover. «For you to see the science and hear us describing the moon, and to see us flying the spaceship by hand, and to see bedtime and bath time and teeth brush time, that’s what it’s like. The mission was all of those things.»

Glover was ecstatic to hear how I and others felt so connected to the crew during their mission. He said it was important to NASA to let the world in on everything it took to send four people a quarter of a million miles away.

«I think that maybe one of the really, most special things about this mission is how much you were able to see,» Glover said with a smile. «It makes me feel good that you felt like you were there.»