Skate 2

Skate 2 is the best game to just fuck around in. The city is perfect, the problem is that the objective they put in this city are absolutely godawful. And on top of that, this game doesn't have the same soul and attention to detail Skate 1 had in many ways.

We'll start with the superficial: the interface and character customization (male) are worse than Skate 1. Yes, Skate 2 allows you to be a girl where the original did not, but I simply liked my Skate 1 character better in every way than his Skate 2 counterpart, from hairstyle to clothing and board accessories. The facial options are also less involved.
Skate 1 allowed you to get sponsored by four different companies, one each for your board, wheels, trucks, and shoes. Skate 2 also allows you to do this, but they simply didn't care about it. Other than your board, every other sponsorship offer is thrown at you after completing an objective chain. They don't let you muse over which company has the best-looking gear, or even let you see what you're using currently. They just tell you to choose with nothing other than a logo, so my truck sponsor ended up only making trucks that clashed horribly with my neon green Creature boards. I was not pleased.
Skate 2's soundtrack has some baffling choices, such as a DragonForce song, but, luckily, you can turn off the songs you don't want to hear in-game, and make a pretty nice playlist.

Skate 2 features a "rebuilt" version of the city from the first game. Most areas are absolutely perfect, but a few sections are simply worse than the original. The suburbs are replaced with woods, roads, and a dam. However, the business district got hit hardest, and not wholly for level design reasons.
In my Skate 1 review, I mentioned how much I absolutely hated "no-skate zones", where security guards would chase you around and try to tackle you. Well, Skate 2's """plot""" is that a corporation that hates skating came in to rebuild the city, so there are more no-skate zones than ever before, and more guards to go along with them. The objectives also tend to take you into no-skate zones more often.
Along with this comes grind blockers, which can be removed by calling a guy. This just means that you have to sit through an additional loading screen when you want to skate there. What fun.

The worst objective type from Skate 1 was the "follow me" missions, where you had to follow another skater. Skate 2 not only brings these back, but puts in more of them than before. The best part of these is that the skaters you need to follow can be hit by cars and fall down. However, when they get up, they teleport to where they would have been if they'd kept going and not been hit by the car, causing you to lose instantly. They also don't take the same path every time, so it's not even trial and error, it's just RNG.
Your fellow skaters are still the scum of the earth, as well. There was one contest I entered called GVR, where six skaters were all on the course at the same time. Everyone kept skating into me and knocking me over. My team won the contest, but, since I didn't get to actually do anything, it didn't feel like an accomplishment at all.
Another contest is the San Van Slam, where you're supposed to launch off a big ramp and do huge tricks. This worked in the first game, because there was one well-made ramp. Skate 2's version has four ramps, three of which are absolutely horrible. breaking my back on the edge of other ramps is not my idea of a good time.

When I played Skate 1, I would sometimes wish I could get off my skateboard to climb stairs or a hill or something. Skate 2 makes me wish I couldn't. Skate 2's on-foot controls are so terrible, and you move at a snail's pace. I absolutely can't stand any time I'm forced to get off the board.
What's worse is that EA has added the ability to move objects around. Challenges will force you to move things around so you can skate on them. This simply doesn't work well for two main reasons.
1: Sometimes, placing an object to complete an objective is extremely precise. Once, they told me to move a quarterpipe so I could do a handplant on a basketball hoop's backboard. Slightly too close, and I'd hit my head on the backboard. Slightly too far, and I couldn't reach it at all. It was a frustrating experience of constantly getting off my board and sluggishly moving myself over to the quarterpipe again to push it very slightly.
2: MOVABLE OBJECTS STILL HAVE MOVEMENT PHYSICS WHEN YOU'RE SKATING
Meaning that if you beef a trick or are being chased by a security guard, the object you need to trick off can be smacked out of place, forcing you to move it yet again.
This mechanic is simply horrible, no question about it in my mind.

Objectives will also be too vague. One example I remember, the objective said "use a ramp to grind the rail". What rail? There were five in the immediate area. After trying every rail, eventually a hint popped up telling me I had to move a ramp, move a rail, and move another ramp, and trick off all of them in one sequence. I had no idea the rails could even be moved.
Another objective required me to leap from one ledge across a street to a much lower ledge. I couldn't survive the fall without bailing, so I had to look it up. Apparently, around the corner was a ramp to move that you needed to land on in order to actually land the trick. I was unimpressed.
The new version of the video challenges also don't tell you what you need to do until you start them, and they can be started anywhere. "Grind for 75 feet" doesn't work if there are no rails around, so you have to cancel the mission. Then it autosaves for no reason, which takes too long when you're trying to find a challenge you can actually do at your current spot.

Skate 2's campaign flashes between really fun and really frustrating. I've since spent hours and hours fucking around in the city, and can't really give this game a low score.