Last month, Activision announced that Tony Hawk Ride, the tenth game in the series endorsed by the professional skateboarder, would ship with a new motion-sensing controller shaped like a skakeboard (without wheels). Yesterday we got a chance to test out the new peripheral with a few game modes for the first time. The verdict? It's actually pretty damn fun.
Activision's new skateboard controller.
The controller is slightly shorter than the length of a real skateboard, and is roughly 1.5" at its thickest point. The top of the board has a grippy rubber covering; the bottom is the plastic shell housing the internal hardware. Although we were told that the board also worked on hard floors, Activision recommended playing on a carpet. The controller feels very sturdy -- it's surprisingly heavy and we'd expect it to withstand a fair amount of footwork without taking any damage.
The board is designed so that movements on the controller mimic those that are used to pull off tricks in real life, so to push off and gain momentum, all you need to do is swipe your foot along one of the sides of the board -- the embedded cameras on the sides of the board will detect that movement and send the virtual skateboarder on its way. The controller is motion-sensitive too, so leaning to the right or left will steer the board in that direction.
We took the game for a quick ride in two modes. In one of the Challenge modes, we had to pull off three short tricks in a row to complete the course. Our first trick was a simple manual (balancing on the back wheels of a skateboard while still rolling ahead), leaning back on the controller so that the nose lifted up and then swiveling to steer the skateboard forward. Next we performed an ollie by quickly stepping on the back edge of the board to bring the nose up for a short second, which popped our skateboarder up in the air, off of a small ramp. We finished with a short rail grind by popping the board up again onto the rail and leaning forwards and back to keep from falling off.
We got the hang of the board after a few attempts at that particular Challenge course -- it's intuitive enough that even if you've barely touched a skateboard before (like us) you'll find it easy to pick up. Next we pulled off some freestyle tricks on a half-pipe. This mode allowed us to build up some momentum and perform 180s by swiveling the board when we reached the top of the pipe, nosegrabs by reaching to the front of the board where the nose-mounted camera would detect a hand, and a few other tricks we unintentionally pulled off while trying to regain our balance at one point. Performing well in this mode builds up a style meter which, when full, slows down time when you're in the air, allowing you to pull off tricks with more precision -- it works a bit like Star Power in Guitar Hero, and also leaves glowing light trails behind the board.
We're a little wary that Activision is getting peripheral-happy (along with a new Guitar Hero game this year, they're releasing DJ Hero with a turntable controller), but this new skateboard controller is well suited for the genre -- it allows a lot more variety of movement than the Wii Balance Board allowed for Skate It. Whether the software is as promising as the hardware remains to be seen. Recent games in the Tony Hawk series have received mixed reviews, but with fresh developer Robomodo -- comprised of EA Chicago's shuttered team -- taking the reins on the project and Activision's promise of a 'breakthrough' in the skateboarding genre, Tony Hawk Ride may be the game skateboarders (and would-be skateboarders) have been waiting for.
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