This isn’t Skate 4 (Crayola Scoot)

Game: Crayola Scoot
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Windows
Played On: Xbox One
Price: £24.99
Available on Xbox Game Pass: No

I decided to spend lockdown playing quite a few video games as you’d imagine, hopefully by the time you’re reading this the lockdown is very much a memory but if not, join me in finding out if this video game made by a crayon company is any good?? I played Crayola Scoot, a 2018 release developed by Climax Studios and published by Outright Games LTD. I will admit I got this game on sale at a pretty reasonable £5 but I will be scratching that from my mind as always and review the game as if it was full price.

I load up the game and a little to my surprise it looks pretty good. You can customise your character (granted there aren’t a million customisation options) but still there’s enough choice there. And again this game doesn’t look bad at all, graphically this game is smashing any expectation I had which is a nice surprise with games like these, sometimes they get phoned in and look awful.

But we come to a tutorial and I start to get worried, the controls feel a bit off, I’ll explain using the buttons of an Xbox controller. To move to push RT, to steer it’s the left thumbstick, to jump it’s the right thumbstick (by either pushing it up or down and up for a bigger jump). You grind with Y, brake with B and have a boost that can be used with RB. Tricks with the right stick when you’re in the air. Now here’s where it gets tricky, you can’t hold the left stick forwards when you’re on the ground, it’s used for doing front flips (back flips if held backwards) so if you do and hid a bump, you go upside down.

At first I thought it was an awful system but I’ll have to hold up my hands and say I simply didn’t get on with it to begin with and that was down to me, given half an hour into the game and actually this system works, and having all the tricks attached to the sticks rather than a button it gives you more control and precision when it comes to showing off your epic scoot skills.

After the tutorial we get into the game, the idea is to play through some game types to gain ‘fame’ and progress the levels till you play the best scooter-ers (is that a word??) in the world and beast them in ‘horse’ style game called ‘scoot’ to work your way to the top and claim the colour cup. See it all makes sense.

There’s a few game types to chooses from such as racing to collect crayons and games of tag or couponing the map in colours I getting the most points by doing tricks. So to be fair there’s plenty to choose from. All of these play pretty well, there isn’t a game type that’s harder or more boring than one before and doing new events gives you bonus to levelling up so that gives you incentive to try them all out.

Ultimately what we have is a kids game and as kids games about scooting around licensed by a company that has funny colour names (looking at you Jazzberry Jam) it’s up there. But to be honest it’s up there in the kids game genre anyway. It’s a decent game and honestly I’m just as surprised as you. Yes the controls take a bit of getting used to but once you do it’s a fair bit of fun. Does it justify £24.99?? No. But if you find it fit less than £10 you’ll be getting a decent deal. Maybe it’s lockdown getting to me but this game was a nice surprise.

6.5/10

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