Midas grinds off PSP into Skate Park City

It's a strange situation that while everyone and their little wheels is piling into the urban jungle that is making skate games for DS (Activision has just announced a serious overhaul to its Tony Hawk series, while EA is releasing its Skate It onto DS), the PSP has only had one skate game – Tony Hawk's Project 8 – released almost a year ago.

Midas' budget Skate Park City is unlikely to match the marketing or quality of that particular title, of course, but done with sufficient style and accessibility, the £20 title could fill a gap which is certainly not niche.

And first impressions seem positive. Instead of taking a simulation approach, Skate Park City has more of a Jet Set Radio vibe (for those that remember Sega's cel-shaded past console effort), both in terms of the futuristic setting and colourful graphics. Also like JSR, there's a story mode, which sees you pitched against The Man, in the shape of 'skate-hater' Virus, who's kidnapped one of your skateboarding buddies.

Obviously, it's just a conceit to get you moving through the various locations – which are accessible as free-roaming environments, consisting of city streets, skate parks, disused factories, casinos and high rise rooftops – if you just want to mess around. You can even laser-tag the robotic drones that fly around the city, either taking them for a ride or using them as weapons by colliding them into enemies.

In terms of the skate mechanics, Midas promises around 30 different kick, manual and grind tricks, which can be comboed together and are backed with comprehensive tutorials. There are also six skaters, with their own styles, and rounding things off is a multiplayer mode – both online and peer-to-peer – so you can show off your tricks and compete against friends.

Skate Park City is due for release on June 27th.