My go-to game machine these days is the aging yet mighty Switch. Though for a good stretch of years, I only played mobile games on smartphones or tablets. Some were casual like Bejeweled, others were console-ish like the recent RPG Fantasian. But the one I’ve played the most and have always kept installed is Touch Grind Skate 2.
There are many kick-flippin' skateboarding games. The most iconic is Tony Hawk Pro Skater, which I first played on N64 (and yeah, I've got the remake on Switch). And the first skateboard game I ever played was Skate or Die on the NES. You see, in junior and senior high school, I didn't just ride a skateboard; I was a skater. I never thought I'd become pro, but that didn't stop me from trying to land fakie 360 flips like Rodney Mullen.
Skateboarding games let me skate like a pro and then some. And my shins never get busted.
So I first played Touch Grind (the original version) on an iPod touch. It was one of the first skate titles I felt really nailed down the physics of flipping a board. Instead of controlling a skater on a board, you directly control the board with two fingers (there is no skater at all). Basically, it's a finger-boarding game. But it's awesome!
The original Touch Grind was like a concept that proved board physics worked, kind of like a simulator. But the environment and camera angle was almost unplayable; it was too hard to see where your board was going to anticipate timing ollies and other tricks.
Touch Grind Skate 2 is more arcade-style than sports sim. It perfected the formula, the skateparks, the physics, and is such an overall improvement that it's like a night and day difference. The game is challenging, fun, and addictive. It's one of those that's simple to grasp, kind of hard to master.
I've played at length both the Android and the iOS versions.
Imagine a fidget spinner in real life, how it lets your fingers absentmindedly fiddle, flick, move, etc. It's tangible and tactile. That's what Touch Grind Skate 2 is like. Flipping and spinning the board in every which way feels like there are never-ending combos you can try to land. The spacing and thus timing of rails, curbs, stairs, ramps, and more is excellently varied.
You can coast and lean to turn and approach a certain object. Or you can simply take whatever comes next and react in real-time, trying to land everything. Ramps and other obstacles surround you in a 3D play-land (when you're a skater, everything is a gap or skate-able). And you constantly set up tricks and lines from one obstacle to the next.
All the while, you want to increasingly vary and lengthen your trick combos to gain point multipliers, reaching ever higher scores. Doing so is how you unlock new boards, wheels, and whole skateparks (levels). Though now you can even buy new parks as in-app purchases. Other rewarding challenges involve finding certain obstacles and doing certain tricks on them.
I haven't played the game in a while actually. But it stays on my phone. Sometimes my fingers get the itch to play it, flicking the board around just for fun. It ranks at the top with Tony Hawk Pro Skater as one of my favorite skate games of all time. If you've never given Touch Grind Skate 2 a try, I recommend it.