Places
University District
Skate 3
There are few places in gaming quite as idyllic as Port Carverton University. The campus is a glass and concrete landscape dotted with vegetation, composed of sloping ramps, stairs, benches and rails, stretched out underneath the eternal sunshine of an early millennium pop-punk music video. The expansiveness and visibility of everything laid out before you make skating in the area a pleasure; there are no unexpected obstacles to jump out abruptly in front of you and ruin your line.
Assuming you grow tired of the yawning spaces and modernistic architecture of the main campus, you can cruise by the old clock-tower and down into the suburbs at the foot of the district. Drained-out swimming pools sit out in the backyards of the modest homes in the area, forming self-contained skating bowls. Also nearby is the “Carvatron”, a skate park surrounded by a running track, filled with all manners of half-pipes, ledges, and even “boobs” to trick off – teehee.
The district also provides plenty of extreme attractions for those who find the usual set of skating fixtures too mundane. The nearby sports stadium features a massive ramp that hurtles down towards a gap over a shark statue – the city’s sporting mascot, no less. Hitching a ride on the back bumper of a car will take you further up the district, to the mountainous peak behind the university.
Along the way to the peak you’ll stumble across the Super-Ultra-Mega Park: a monstrosity of a skate park that more than lives up to its ridonkulous name, featuring absurdly huge ramps, pipes, and slopes, all contained within an artificial sandstone canyon. For many players, this is the district’s highlight.
At the peak of the district is the Observatory. Although it features a small astrological landmark/mobile/structure/installation/whatchamacallit to trick about on, the real fun lies in going all the way back down to the foot of the mountain. Many a race starts at the Observatory, and with good reason – racing down the twisting turns and banked curves of the mountain roads is hella fun, yo. However, the fastest way to reach the bottom is to take the road less travelled.
Beside the Observatory is a steep, breakneck drop into the storm drains that run down the mountain, into the main campus. There isn’t a man alive who could resist the temptation of such a route, and plunging down into the gully from here causes you to reach insane speeds as you rocket through the concrete channels and into the university below.
There are few pleasures more liberating than whiling away the hours soaring effortlessly through the air, like Icarus flying on wings made of skateboards, to the tune of Cracklin’ Rosie.
Ah, paradise.
Looprider 