Tony Hawk: Ride

pboreham

pboreham

Kick. Snare. Hat. Ride.
5 August 2002
C*lchester
Southend Utd
In my quest to fill my office with plastic toys peripherals, I think I'll be picking this up next. :)

I liked Skate and this has kind of been on my radar, but I'm starting to get very curious about the tech and will probably get it when it drops on the 4th December.

Anyone else?
 
Used to love this series in my early teens.

Played multiplayer many times with friends and family, especially the "tag" game. :D

Didn't really keep up with the series after Underground but it's easy not to, due to the big amount of titles the series has had.
 
The Tony Hawk Pro Skater games and the first Underground game were really fun, played them a lot when I was young... Since then I think it's gone downhill a lot, and Skate has well and truly overshadowed it now.

Good memories from the series though :).
 
The vids of this look good - and the vids of people using the peripheral look good, but the true test is going to be if the 2 actually marry up when playing.

I've read in different articles that it isnt quite 100% accurate. If I'm going to buy into this, then I need to know that what I'm doing on the board is going to (more or less) be replicated instantly in the game.

Will have to read some solid previews before committing to the purchase.

EDIT

Just watched these vids and it actually looks like the actions marry up very well :)

Could be a definite purchase now! http://www.the-fun-zone.com/tony-hawk-ride-videos-mini.html
 
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The technology used looks pretty good, but imo the gameplay looks crap... Look at how silly the boosts look when you ollie as exit the half-pipe...

Hopefully we see something similar for Skate 3 though, would make a nice change from using a controller if done correctly.
 
Have any of you seen the limited edition version? Holy shit it looks hot. However, I'm not a fan of skate, so won't be getting this.

pa.167968.1.jpg
 
Getting some very weird reviews.

Lots saying "game is totally broken" and scoring it 2-3 / 10.

Others saying its a revolution and scoring it 8-9 / 10.

Not much in between.

My own personal take (though I havent played it, but I've been getting through as much info as is available), is that people either 'get it' or dont.

As its such a physical game, i think people can either do it and think its great, or cannot do it and just panning the game as faulty.

Like real skateboarding - I have never really tried, but I wouldnt be able to pick a board up today and go out and skate - and if I did, whilst trying (and falling off), I'd get angry and think skating was really crap and probably give up trying.

Thats what I'm trying to say about TH:Ride. If people cannot do it, then they are saying the game is bad, rather than practicing and trying to improve.

Those that can do it and pull the (right) moves off consistently, say that its pretty much 1:1 and very responsive to your movement.

Looking forward to trying it and finding out for myself (even brought a funky pair of VANs slip on shoes that weekend :LOL:).

- oh also, this game is featured on the Gadget Show tonight. I've already seen the clip on YouTube though and lispy-baldy gives it a big thumbs up, but I take his opinion on gaming with the largest fistful of salt you can find...
 
pboreham said:
oh also, this game is featured on the Gadget Show tonight. I've already seen the clip on YouTube though and lispy-baldy gives it a big thumbs up, but I take his opinion on gaming with the largest fistful of salt you can find...
Click to expand...

I have yet to hear him slate a single game.
 
For some reason, it wasnt on there!? Bit odd, unless it was recorded to just be shown on the GS website.
 
Eurogamer said:
It's an ancient franchise, it's available for every platform, it costs a hundred quid and it comes with a plastic skateboard. There's just one problem: it's rubbish.
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Just what I suspected.

They can shove their plastic skateboard toy up their arse if they aren't going to even try to compete with Skate's gameplay.
 
I'm just approaching it as a fun arcade game suitable for quick blasts and something a bit different to the norm.

After reading the reviews and opinions, my expectation is rock bottom, so if its any better than that - then that'll be grand.

(either that or its on eBay for £50 on Friday :LOL:)
 
Well... it arrived!

Must admit my enthusiasm drained as the reviews came in and my expectations were rock bottom.

Firstly, the board is great - solid, looks good and feels like it can take some punishment.

Calibration took around 6 attempts - but I was playing in a room that has a lot of junk around at the moment (just moved!) so wasnt a lot of free space around the board (which it needs to calibrate).

Once calibrated, I went through the training excercises (be warned, these are ALL repeated when you start career, so you may want to jump straight into that).

For the most part, the board is responsive enough, registers what I was doing - when I was doing it right. By that, I mean you have to make very certain moves. I.e. to Ollie, you need to pop the board up high and quick and it Ollie'd every time.

Even the tilt tricks work for the most part. Flick tricks are harder, but that is only because (not being a skater), I found it hard to both balance and flip the board to the side and back quickly whilst in an ollie. Its certainly not impossible though and again, on the whole works well and I'm sure will improve with practice.

The biggest problem is the game itself.

Feels like something from the early 90s. Crappy videos that dont really relate to the action from skaters that dont really want to be in the them!

The graphics arent great and the music choice is a bit odd.

Menus are very clunky and just not logical (cannot 'back out' of a menu screen - you have to start your run, pause and then quit - annoying).

So on the whole, its probably not as bad as some of the 1/10 reviews you've seen and certainly not a revolution like GH/RB/DJH was.

I'd say its a 5 or 6/10 for me so far and I can only imagine it getting more annoying as more complex tricks are needed.

People will ask - is it worth £90? Always a difficult question as it depends what £90 means to you.

Some people will think nothing of going out on a Friday/Sat night and spending £100 on drink/powders(!) etc, others £90 is a hell of a lot of money.

Personally, I'd say on face value, its not worth £90 as the actual game is a bit cack, BUT, if you have the spare and fancy something a bit different, then its certainly not 'broke' as I've seen it described in some reviews.
 
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