Tony Hawk: Ride Impressions

Nov 5, 2009

It's been a decade since Activision unveiled the innovative Tony Hawk franchise to the world and a lot has happened to the series since. It has seen upward of 15 sequels, semi-sequels, remixes and spin-offs spanning a myriad of consoles and handhelds. And at least in the last four years, the once-unstoppably-popular brand has taken a serious hit at a retail level -- case in point: Pro Skater 3 sold more than two million copies for PlayStation 2 alone; the best-selling version of Proving Ground, the last Hawk game, managed less than 400,000 in sales. Longtime Hawk developer NeverSoft stepped away from the license a year ago so Activision enlisted the aid of a Chicago upstart called Robomodo to spark new life into the skateboarding series. The result is Tony Hawk: Ride for PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360, a game that looks similar to its predecessors, but plays very differently. That's because the game doesn't utilize a controller, but a skateboard peripheral -- and you skate with your feet, not your hands.

Activision undoubtedly hopes to nab a piece of the bloated mainstream pie with a package that bears some resemblance to the real extreme sport. Your average Joe may fiddle around endlessly with dual analog sticks like some awestruck monkey, but surely he knows the basics of a skateboard, right? Ride is bundled with the skateboard peripheral, itself an impressive piece of technology complete with two accelerometers of the kind found in your Wii remote and four infrared sensors. Choose your stance -- regular or goofy -- and then plant your feet on it as you would the real deal. Supposing you don't weigh more than, say, 350 pounds, you should be good to go. That's the concept, anyway, and I had the opportunity to go feet-on with the final version of the title this week to test it all out.

First things first. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 builds of the game are identical and the WIi version comes very close, minus and plus a feature or two. The latter is co-developed by Buzz Monkey and boasts roughly 95 percent of the same levels and content, but the developer added Mii functionality -- you can play as own cartoony avatar or as a caricature of a pro like Hawk, Paul Rodriguez, Mo Capaldi, Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins, Cara-Beth Burnside, Kat Von D (LA Ink) and my favorites, Christian Hosoi -- and included an extra location. The drawback is that the online mode present in the other builds is nowhere to be found in the Wii one. The offline party mode -- up to eight players taking turns -- is present, however.

Ride is divided into a few unique modes. Every level can be played in four different ways, including Speed Slalom, Trick, Challenge and Free Skate, most of which are self explanatory. In Speed Slalom, which reminds me of the Wii title Downhill Jam, you race through linear-style stages with forward momentum and must simply make it to the finish line as fast as possible. In Trick, your goal is to amass as many points as you can performing crowd-pleasing flips, grabs, grinds, and so on. And in Challenge, you're given various goals that must achieved, usually as combos. For instance, you might have to grind a bench, land in am and then do a flip trick, in that order.

The experience unfolds across six worldwide regions, each of which encapsulates two skate-ready landmarks. In Southern California, there's Venice Beach and the LA River. In Chicago, there's Lower Wacker Drive and Loop Plaza. In New York, Central Park and Brooklyn Banks. In Frankfurt, the Frankfurt Airport. In Spain, Barcelona Plaza and Toledo. And in Japan, BoomX2 TH Vertical U-Ramp and BoomX2 TH Go Show. Nearly all of the regions sport both a pro challenge and a half-pipe area for vert action.

When you enter a stage, you'll be asked to choose your difficulty. There's casual, confident and hardcore, all offering very different experiences. Activision insisted I start with casual and in hindsight I can see why; hardcore will probably prove a little too daunting for most players who haven't warmed up to the skateboard peripheral first. Casual takes the worries of navigation out of the equation -- you follow an on-rails path so that you can concentrate on tricking. In confident mode, you're no longer tethered to a fixed route, but there's a lot of transparent aid backing your runs. For example, you'll find your character magnetized toward grinds and icons so that they are easier to nail and nab. Flip tricks in both casual and confident are also very forgiving. And then, of course, hardcore, which offers no assistance whatsoever. Skate freely, but if you're too slow on your feet, anticipate a lot of pavement to the face.

There's been a lot of talk by gamers about Ride's move set being dumbed considerably down to meet the conventions of the skateboard peripheral, a claim that Robomodo president Josh Tsui disputed. There are more than 100 moves. "It's not at all [dumbed down]," he said. "There are probably more moves than people will be able to discover for quite some time." Indeed, in my short time with the title, I saw everything from nose and tail grabs, heel flips, blunts, finger flips, 360 Pop Shove Its, kick flips, inverts, manuals and more. Whether or not the list genuinely rivals that of preexisting games has yet to be determined, but the roster seems robust.

Right. So how does it play? Well, I've thought about that a lot in the hours I've had to ponder my experience with the game and the answer I'm forced to is, simply, unintuitively. I'm certain that with practice and time gamers will be able to acclimate themselves to the board and master the controls. Videos we're posting with this article show Activision gamers rocking through levels. Simultaneously, any dreams the publisher has of this title becoming the next insta-accessible Wii Sports or Fit are misguided because Ride requires a steep learning curve and until one ascends it the game feels mechanical and not particularly inspired. That is, at least, the impression I'm left with. I'm optimistic that when I'm able to invest more time with the board and the mechanics the pieces of the gameplay puzzle will fit snugly together.

On paper, it all makes sense. Stand on the board and pivot left or right to steer, supposing you play on one of the higher difficulties. To gain speed, take a foot off and kick as if really skating -- the sensors read the sweep of your leg. To ollie, snap back on the tail. To manual, lean back and hold. I grew up skating and was never a superstar -- I spent just as much time on my face as I did my board -- but I knew the basics, from ollies to kick flips, and I could grind benches and ride quarterpipes. I placed my right foot on the tail's right, my left on the upper-left corner, and snapped an ollie to see if the board would recognize the motion of a kick flip and to my surprise it registered just fine again and again. The sensors on the front and rear of the board see your hands as you go in for grabs and translate those maneuvers to the game world. You don't actually need to grab the board either, so if you're not limber don't worry about it -- just come within a foot or so and the sensors will spot your good intentions. To ride half-pipes, you rotate your board so that it's parallel to the screen.

In practice, I found the seemingly simple process of maintaining a straight route more difficult than it should have been, likely due to sensitivity issues. The good news is that you can actually set the sensitivity of your board's virtual trucks in game, so if you've got a heavy foot, you can under-correct and vice versa, which is a welcomed inclusion. There's also a slight delay between the moves you make and the animations on-screen so you'll need to pre-load maneuvers ever so slightly, which should be a familiar undertaking to Wii owners who have already toyed around with Balance Board games.

Ride ships November 17 for the aforementioned systems. I asked Activision reps for the final price, but they wouldn't comment. Really strange given that the game is so close to release -- why keep it a secret? Online retailers have listed the price as $119 for a few weeks, but of course that isn't official until it comes direct from the publisher. Look out for our full review in the not too distant future.