Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad

Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad continued Electronic Arts' beloved skateboarding series, bringing skateboarding fun to the Game Boy in the form of a series of minigames and disciplines where the player pulls off tricks, rides ramps, and tries to achieve the best possible score. Rather than one continuous mode, the game offers more of a sequence of shorter challenges, which suited the handheld format's short play sessions well and let players return repeatedly to just the discipline they enjoyed most.

The controls focus on correctly timing jumps, tricks, and landings, with the game rewarding riskier combos with a higher score. The visuals are simple, but the skateboarding animations are smooth enough that the player feels in control of the character even during faster sections. The music and sound tried to evoke the rebellious atmosphere of skater subculture that was an integral part of the whole Skate or Die series' image at the time, and even in its limited Game Boy form it gave the game a distinctive edge. Switching between the individual disciplines also gave the player room to pick out whichever challenge they felt most confident in and gradually improve at the tougher skateboarding tricks without having to master the whole game at once.

Bad 'N Rad fit into the wider wave of sports titles that brought beloved alternative sports to the Game Boy at the turn of the eighties and nineties. Although it wasn't a revolutionary title, it helped keep the Skate or Die brand in view even among players who didn't spend their time on home consoles. Today it's interesting above all as evidence of how skateboarding culture was already finding its way into video games at the turn of the eighties and nineties, long before the genre was made famous by later, more technically advanced titles.