Tony Hawk Ride – UK
Tony Hawk Ride by Activision
Tony Hawk Ride
Tony Hawk Ride – Product Features
- Four different modes built into the game include: Challenge, Speed, Trick, and Free Skate, in epic locations across the globe
- Includes the innovative ‘Ride’ board controller featuring motion sensing technology, smart sensors, a contoured base and a gritty surface to ensure a good grip
- With no complicated control schemes to master, the game is designed to allow players to get on the board and start mastering the 100+ built in moves from the beginning
- Eight player multiplayer and online play support lets you and your friends feel the thrill of skateboarding together
- Multiple difficulty levels make the game a fun and challenging experience for people of all skill levels
Pre-Order NOW Tony Hawk Ride
Available December 4th 2009
Tony Hawk Ride – Product Description
Manufacturer’s Description
Experience the true thrill of skateboarding as never before through the revolutionary new skateboard controller in Tony Hawk: Ride. Bundled with the Ride game, the unique motion-sensitive board controller redefines the action-sports genre by translating your body motions into the game. No buttons, no thumbs, no analogue sticks—just you on the board. For the first time in video game history, anyone can jump on a skateboard and feel the freedom, creativity, and accomplishment of skateboarding.
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 Pick up and shred action. |
 Innovative board controller. |
 Mini-challenges and events. |
Fans of board sports will love the authentic experience of the board controller, while the intuitive nature of the board and multiple difficulty settings make it a fun and exciting experience for people of all ages and skill levels. The ease with which anyone can pick up and play this game and each player’s unique playing style make this a fun social game for friends and family to play together. So, are you ready to Ride?
All About the Board
Using full motion sensing technology, the intuitive skateboard controller allows players to physically control the action by performing various movements and gestures on the board that directly translate into amazing tricks seen in the game. Closely resembling a “deck”–a board without wheels or trucks, which allows actual skateboarders to manoeuvre their boards–the Ride controller is built around a combination of flat and rounded surfaces. Along the majority of the board’s upper surface, as well as the middle center portion of its bottom, players will find flat, level surfaces that provide for players’ balance. This is countered by the rounded edges along the top at either ends, as well as the bottom outer edges. These allow for true to life trick performance mechanics which allows gamers to experience a full range of movement as they rotate, tilt and lift the board in a variety of ways to discover every trick in the game.
In addition, the Ride board comes with features designed to maximise ease and continuity of play. These include an upper surface texture similar to the grip tape used on real boards to help maintain player contact with and control of the board, and a full set of traditional navigational buttons that allow the player to interact with the game between levels and online when it is more convenient to do so.
Anyone Can Ride
Tony Hawk Ride is designed to be fully accessible to everyone – from hardcore fans to players with no prior skateboarding experience. Moving away from the open-world game environment that recent releases in the franchise have embraced, Ride is instead built around a wide range of mini-challenges and events more concerned with riding than exploration. These cover every genre in modern skateboarding and aim to focus the player’s attention on developing their skills with the board. And this is easy to do with addictive and engrossing gameplay without complex button combinations or analogue sticks that allows gamers to literally step on the board and play.
Exciting, Immersive and Social Game Play
Tony Hawk Ride features a diverse set of trick, vert, and speed challenges that allow players at all levels to take on their friends and family as they compete with each other via “Hot Seat” game play. In addition, with robust multiplayer, online and create-a-skater modes, players can jump into a personalised and extremely social gaming experience.
Tony Hawk Ride’ Review from MTV.COM
Tony Hawk Ride
It’s easy to recognize that Activision’s “Tony Hawk” series has floundered in recent years against stiff competition from EA’s fledgling “skate” franchise. The fact of the matter is, the signature gameplay on offer just got stale over the years (despite slight innovations offered up with “Project 8″ and “Proving Ground”). And that’s where “Tony Hawk Ride” comes into play. With its fancy new skateboard peripheral that pushes player immersion to new levels, Activision is hoping that players will be quick to hop on board and dish out $120 bucks for the chance to simulate skating like the pros. So is this the season to give Tony another chance?
The Basics
Robomodo’s first shot at the Tony Hawk franchise totally changes how players relate to the game thanks to the new skateboard controller they’ve developed. Players stand on the board and shift their balance to simulate turns, ollies, kickflips and the entire gamut of a pro skateboarders trick book. Tony Hawk Ride allows players to create their own characters to travel to locations the world over and compete in challenges like speed runs, park-specific trick challenges, and the occasional halfpipe.
Tony Hawke Ride – The Highs
The Deck
This thing is solid. Activision has plenty of experience making plastic peripherals to litter your home with, but none of them feel quite as weighty and dependable as “Ride’s” skateboard controller. Taking it out of the box, it is instantly clear that it’s a fine piece of craftsmanship, and standing on it and maintaining balance is a relative breeze. My experience with the controller was played on a thin rug over hardwood floors, and I slowly came to master balance on the deck despite my initial misgivings about my sometimes-terrible center of balance.
It’s All in the Motions
I’ve read about a number of players having difficulty pulling off their intended tricks when using the controller, but I didn’t have many issues after using the board for a few of hours. In fact, I was particularly impressed with how well I managed to use the thing given my complete lack of skill on a real skateboard. Kickflips are handled by tilting the board after performing an ollie, while varials and shove-its are activated with a quick pivot of the board. Also, placing your hand over one of the four optical sensors on the board allows your character to pull off a mid air grab or stall at the top of a quarter-pipe.
Later challenge stages that require very specific tricks to be pulled off at very specific times did prove challenging, but they also prompted me to become very aware of how my feet were manipulating the board to better my chances for success on the next run.
A Solid Setlist
With tracks ranging from Beck’s “Gamma Ray” to the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Zero” I have to say that “Tony Hawk Ride” has one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard of late. There are over 50 songs to enjoy here and my ears have yet to tire of hearing any one of them while faux-skating in the middle of my living room.
The Lows
Casual is the Only Way to Go
Tony Hawk Ride features 3 different difficulty levels, but only one of them allowed me to actually enjoy the experience of controlling my character with a plastic skateboard. The casual difficulty setting hands the task of steering your character over to the computer so you can stand there and focus on pulling off tricks, instead of constantly battling every small variation in balance that’ll otherwise steer your character off course. I believe that there are people out there — real skateboarders, for instance — that will appreciate the next step in difficulty, but to me that step feels more like a leap… across a 20 yard chasm.
This “Low” is Loading, Stuck In Another Menu
At first I thought the long load times and constant irritation of occasionally being forced to navigate menus with your standard 360 controller (only every time you land a high score) was irritating, but I was wrong. These menus are an absolute mess to navigate. Multiple menu screens offer the same set of choices. The challenge selection menu is quite literally impossible to back out from without first selecting a challenge, waiting for the game to load, and then quitting that game. And the sheer amount of one second “hiccups” between each menu screen makes the whole experience a bit more of a chore than I’d like.
Just Say “No” to Live Action
Live action actors in videogames had a time and place (read: “Night Trap”). It’s never been done well (“Night Trap” is campy, campy, campy!!!). And will never be done well (unless they make “Night Trap 2: The Quickening”) Combine that with the fact that professional skateboarders are neither actors, nor charismatic, and you have the terrible mini-cutscenes from “Ride.” Every line these pros deliver looks and sounds absurdly phoned-in.
Community?
“Tony Hawk Ride” does allow you to hop online and connect with up to three other players to challenge each other to any of the game’s available sessions, but there have to be three other players online for that to happen. Sadly, when I could find a match (which was rare), it typically only had one other person in it.
Reliability Concerns
At first, I was a bit surprised to receive two copies of “Tony Hawk Ride” in the mail, but it’s a good thing Activision sent that second copy. After trying to calibrate my first skateboard controller for an hour and 20 minutes (all while Tony Hawk kept repeating, “this is probably the easiest thing you’ll do all day.” Oh the irony…) I decided to try out the other controller to see if it would work. And it did — right away. I have since tried to calibrate the original skateboard and it continues to fail every time.
Final Word
“Tony Hawk Ride” is a difficult game to recommend. It’s price point is high (at £89 you can get two new titles for the price of this one) and the learning curve will have many players hitting a brick wall faster than they’d probably like to if they don’t have much experience skateboarding. While there is plenty of fun to be had in the game’s casual setting, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m playing some great first-person shooter like it’s a rail shooter, and that’s just not the “immersive skateboarding experience” that I’m looking for.
