Winners and Losers: Skate 4 kickflips to life while Hawk-Eye soils Premier League return
Sports! That’s the uniting theme in this week’s winners and losers, with the worlds of skateboarding and football colliding into a heap of discussion.
With government-enforced lockdowns starting to ease up around the world, it makes sense that the notion of playing sports is at the forefront of most peoples’ thoughts, making this week’s winners and losers a timely highlight.
Winner: Skate 4
2020 is turning out to be a solid year for fans of skateboarding games. First we had the reveal of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skate 1+2 Remastered. Now we have confirmation of a new entry in EA’s much beloved, yet long-dormant series, Skate.
Rumours of fourth entry in the Skate series have persisted for quite some time, particularly as Skate 3 hit store shelves over 10 years ago on PS3 and Xbox 360. In the ensuing decade, hype for a Skate revival has only grown amongst the fan-base, and now the dream is finally a reality.
Of course, the true reality is still a ways off. With no official trailer shown during the EA Play showcase, outside of a brief teaser with the game’s director and creative director. The two figures explained that the series’ fanbase helped to bring Skate 4 to life, so a collective pat on the back is certainly due.
One other thing to note – EA has yet to give the new Skate title a proper name, so there’s no way of knowing just yet if we’re gearing up for a fully-fledged sequel or a next-gen remaster, not too dissimilar to what Tony Hawk’s has in store for us.
Loser: Hawk-Eye’s goal-line tech
After a global hiatus thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, sports fans around the world can let out a sigh of relief – the Premier League is back. Offering a much needed respite from the doom and gloom of 2020, it didn’t take long until the fun was dashed by an absolute blunder involving Hawk-Eye’s goal-line technology.
Designed to know exactly if the ball’s gone over the goal-line, Hawk-Eye’s tech couldn’t seem to pick up an obvious goal from Oliver Norwood during Sheffield United’s match against Aston Villa, complaining about issues of ‘occlusion’.
The fun didn’t stop there however, as neither the referee nor VAR picked up the goal either, leaving fans at home yelling at the TV for dear life, begging for the result to be reconsidered. The blunder did result in some fantastic responses online however.
#bbcfootball Hawkeye needs to take a trip to Barnard Castle
— Andy Szpuk (@AndySzpuk) June 17, 2020
Hawk-Eye issued an apology afterwards, but it’s too little too late for any Sheffield fans who were hoping for a win in their search for Champions League qualification. Still, at least there’s finally some new entertainment to feast our eyes on after binging the entire Netflix catalogue several times over.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
