Wow I didn't think the graphics were bad at all.

The in-game cutscenes sport very clean good looking characters. The stars in particular look especially spot on.
The lighting remains the best in all of the sports world.
The animations on the board are still the best in all the sports world.
The textures are super clean and mesh with the stylish(ish) filters that plague most every frame in the game.

I will admit the animations off the board including bails are dated and silly. Although the bails only look silly because they put a massive amount of caps on the rag doll joints so the falls look weird and stiff and are SO slow.
Some of the skin textures look weird...kind of like everybody is suffering from skin cancer. It might very well be the filters.
Some of the models are noticeably lower polygon than they should be for this generation. Probably due to the detailed environments.
Off the board controls and animations are ridiculous. Takes me right out of the game every time i do it.

Skate. 2 continues amaze with it's warm sincerity and organic controls.

However at the same time, off the board controls are just as if not more awkward than tony hawk's. The thrasher bail thingy mode continues to be as annoying as those type of bail damage counters in every extreme sports game is. Aaaaaaand thats about it. instant buy.