Remember San Vanelona? It’s gone now — destroyed. In a neat bit of cross-platform continuity, EA took San Van to pieces in the Wii and DS editions of Skate It, hammering it with a series of freak disasters, giving Skate 2 the chance to rebuild from the rubble. But what you’ll find there isn’t necessarily a return to the glory days. In the wake of the disaster, MongoCorp has essentially skate-proofed the city, transforming it from a boarder’s paradise to a living hell. But when have skate-stoppers ever stopped skaters? The stage is set — and the battle will take place at 60 frames per second.

Completely throwing out the old city seems like a strange choice for a sequel, but it’s a good way to make sure nobody says “Skate 2 is just Skate with a paint job,” so we’re down with the overhaul. New areas like San Vanelona Mountain offer terrifyingly twisted roads for deathraces, while Slappy’s Skatepark in The Projects (the area that used to be Suburbia) proves that not all areas of the city have been given the same love by Mongo. We spent our hands-on time on the Waterfront, a gleaming blue-and-white plaza filled with fountains, ledges, and big blue benches, the last of which showed off two new features. First, those benches were movable, like just about every other object in New San Vanelona; the environment is no longer static, so you can push and pull things like railings and mailboxes into custom trick lines. Second, we were able to do a trick with those benches that we’ve always dreamed about doing in real life: jumping off the board while in motion, leaping over the bench while the deck slides underneath, then landing on the grip tape on the other side. Cool.

That’s just one of oodles of new tricks — we busted out one-foot ollies, footplants on nearby objects (as well as beanplants off the ground), and with enough air, some fingerflips. EA says the number of tricks has doubled, in part because the RB bumper now represents a “world grab.” That is, in the way that Skate suggested the twin analog sticks should be your two feet, Skate 2 makes the RB button your hands. Now you can grab the nose or tail of your board during a grind or handplant off the lips of ramps, and access even more grab tricks with the gamepad’s face buttons.

All these additional tweaks make us concerned that Skate might lose its purity. The beauty of the first game was its organic feel and lack of “Hey, look, a neighborhood made out of quarter-pipes” pretensions. EA Black Box says they’re well aware of that concern and that all the enhancements are for the best. What we’ve played so far definitely feels a bit different, but still in the neighborhood.