PS3 Review of Tony Hawk: RIDE Skateboard Bundle: Wear out the Carpet, Not Your Body

Written by:  • Edited by: Michael Hartman
Updated Dec 26, 2009
• Related Guides: Video Game | PS3
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Time to stop dissin' other skateboarders and show your stuff. Sure you're the big man with a controller in hand, but how about hopping onto the RIDE skateboard and using it to play the game with Tony Hawk? Think moving your body is easier than punching buttons? Wait and see.

Skate Man Meet Skateboard

Bundle
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The Tony Hawk franchise isn’t new, which isn’t to say that skateboard fans haven’t found a lot to love when picking up the PS3. But despite the changes between games; different alterations in gameplay and attitude and locations and graphic style and etc. - the one thing they all had in common was that you had to have a controller gripped in your hands to make anything go. Which is the whole idea behind RIDE - changing that by giving you a (mock) skateboard you can jump on and use for the moves.
The game gives you different locations and different game modes - you might have seen this type of stuff before but it’ll be brand new different now that you’re standing up to make it all happen. And for Pete’s sake - who in their right mind is going to go get 8 buds to play with right off the bat without first spending some time getting the swing of handling that board? I’m worried enough about online play but at least nobody will be seeing how bad I suck on RIDE the first couple of times out.

Feet Don't Fail Me Now
Rating Average

Skateboard
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Now saying my skateboarding days are behind me is like saying the Ocean’s deep, but I still can remember the fun of balance - balanced by the pain of falling without all the accouterments of helmets and elbow and kneepads. IRDE lets me re-experience that freedom, sans the extreme pain that was too often my reward. The controller doesn’t exactly work in the same manner as a real skateboard - how could it - but what it does do is twofold. First, its wireless aspect makes perfect sense and is a necessity for being able to move about a room (carpeted works best) without concerns for 180’s or even 360’s. Second, the Ride board has a nice feeling to it (balance?) that lends itself to wanting to maneuver around on It. Practice may make perfect but better to be on this than the real thing I think. The 100+ moves built in that the manual says I can get right to playing might be true, so maybe it's my knees that aren't cooperating like they should. Can't blame the motion-sensing tehcnology I guess (or can I?). I can dig the way the board combines flat and curved surfaces so trick mechanics through rotating, titling and lifting the board becomes possible (or at least possible for me on RIDE).

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