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Check out these 16 awesome Touchgrind Skate 2 tricks in video form

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Check out these 16 awesome Touchgrind Skate 2 tricks in video form

If you regularly listen to the Pocket Gamer Podcast, you'll know that I'm a gigantic fan of Touchgrind Skate 2.

Our Harry thought it was quite good, too, handing Illusion Labs's skateboarding simulation a well-deserved Gold Award at review.

If you've yet to play Touchgrind Skate 2, then the tricks in the videos below may seem a little tame in comparison to the crazy stuff you'll see pulled off in a game like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Believe you me, though, these videos represent the culmination of hours and hours of practice.

Learning the game's controls, finding the choicest spots, and choosing the right combination of tricks are all key elements in the making of a great gaming skating video.

So, take a look below at my carefully crafted celluloid creations, let me know what you think of them, and then post your own videos in the comments section below. Dude.

Doing the Impossible
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I hate Impossibles (where the board flips vertically), as they always tend to catch on the lip of whatever I'm tricking off of. However, they almost always look great. Late ones are easier to pull off, it seems. And the spine ramp is a good place to show them off in video form.

Kickflip to Nose Stall
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This is the same spine ramp, and another trick I with which (used to) have problems. Yep, it's the stall after a flip. It's all about timing with stalls, and I find that refraining from using spins - such as Pop Shuvits - helps enormously here, as you want to make placing two fingers back on the board as easy as possible.

Trimming the trees
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A really good skate video is about being creative with your environment. Whether that's spotting a line that no one else has thought of, or using specific tricks that jibe with the theme of their surroundings.

Landing in the V
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Staying on the theme of 'tricks and environment in concert', this video features my landing in the concrete V, rather than going through it.

Hitting the iron
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I spotted a bar of iron peeking out above a quarter pipe and wondered whether or not I could get up there and trick on it. Turns out that you can.

Paying the toll
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This time, I'm using the barrier of the toll booth to go from the highest level to the lowest level in one smooth grind. You can't hear me while I'm playing, but I'm also shouting, "take that, society" while I execute the trick.

Late Double Kickflip off the lip of the bowl
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I like this video for two reasons. Firstly, the grind almost comes to a natural end before the trick out. Secondly, the whole thing is so silky smooth.

First Darkslide landed in Touchgrind Skate 2
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On the subject of smoothness, this was one of the earliest tricks I recorded, and is one of the slickest. The transition into half-pipe with the double kickflip is the icing on the cake.

Nose Grind to Darkslide of doom
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Another Darkslide, but it's part of a grind sequence here. Transitions like these can often look sketchy, but this one was decent. It's included here because of the increased difficulty in grinding up rails.

A darker type of stall
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After a while, you get used to performing Darkslides and Dark Stalls. So much so, in fact, that they become commonplace and easy to pull off. This one's so laid back, so gentle in its execution, it's almost comical.

From nose to blunt
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Again, the length of the Noseslide is decent, but it's the transition into the Bluntside - a trick which still causes me grief - of which I'm most proud.

Getting up there
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Though most of the above tricks were only possible due to hard work, occasionally something will just happen while you're skating that you just have to capture. The game's sound and graphics bugging out is a prime example.

Basic rail trick
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One of the things I love most about Touchgrind Skate 2 is the fact that your gradual improvements are eminently discernible. You can tangibly sense you're making progress here. The above is a basic rail trick with which I was incredibly pleased at the time.

Higher grind
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Fast-forward several hours, and I'm back at the same location. Only this time, I've chosen a much higher rail to grind down, and I flip out using a nollie trick.

A lovely little line
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The same process of improvement applies to lines, too. This line was really tricky when I recorded it...

An even lovelier line
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... but see how, with a little more time, the line becomes longer, the tricks become riskier (I almost screw up the triple kickflip at the start), and the entire video looks that much more impressive.

Think you've captured an even better trick, line, or run on camera? Post a comment below with a link to your video, and maybe we'll highlight the best ones in a future article.
Peter Willington
Peter Willington
Die hard Suda 51 fan and professed Cherry Coke addict, freelancer Peter Willington was initially set for a career in showbiz, training for half a decade to walk the boards. Realising that there's no money in acting, he decided instead to make his fortune in writing about video games. Peter never learns from his mistakes.