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Tony Hawk: Ride Blog Impressions

by Neal Ronaghan - June 3, 2009, 11:50 am EDT
Total comments: 3

At Activision’s booth I got a chance to try out the new skateboard controller for Tony Hawk: Ride for the PlayStation 3. The controller is an interesting beast and looks similar to a skateboard deck. It reads which way you lean and has four sensors, one on each side, that point on an upward angle. These sensors read grabs and other similar tricks.

The first part I tried was a simple street run. I began by pushing off the board to gain momentum like a real skateboarder would. This is read by one of the side sensors. After I gained momentum I manualed by slowly tilting the controller up. It was a weird sensation, especially since I was used to playing Tony Hawk with a controller.

I then ollied by quickly leaning back onto the board and then my on-screen avatar was in the air. You can do flip tricks by jerking the controller around in a direction. This was a little weird, but I guess it is the best you can represent a flip trick in this game without actually flipping the board in the air.

Grinding was the next thing that I tried as I ollied onto a bar and had to keep my balance. You can easily modify the grind by tilting the board in different directions. After that, my first run ended.

Next up was the half pipe where the board was set up differently. Instead of the board being perpendicular to the television, it was parallel. This is when the sensors and the grab tricks really came into play.

You began at the top of the half pipe and had to lean on the controller to go down into it. When you get up to the crest of the half pipe, you have to push off and ollie to get air and then either do a flip trick or move your hand in front of one of the sensors on each side of the skateboard controller to perform a grab.

I had an issue with the grabs because I couldn’t figure out exactly where the sensors were pointing. The idea of them pointing upwards is so that you don’t have to reach all the way down to the ground, but I ended up having to do that anyway. It was fun, but frustrating.

Overall, I think Tony Hawk Ride still has a lot of potential, but it might be a little difficult to get to work perfectly.

Talkback

RABicleJune 04, 2009

Did you try a 360?
Can you Darkslide?
How about landing in manual or nollie?
Did you swap stances?
How about idiot mongo footed skaters like me?
What about flatland freestyle tricks like handstands?

Armak88June 05, 2009

cops push mongo

D_AverageJune 05, 2009

Can you pick up the skateboard like that scene from Kids and terrorize the spectators?

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