You Must Be THIS Stupid To Take This Ride
If you can't see the line, congrats, you should avoid Tony Hawk: RIDE.
Published: November 20, 2009
I've seen a lot of dumb ideas come and go in the decade or so I've been doing this, but Tony Hawk: RIDE ranks up there as one of the single dumbest, most expensive and utterly franchise-destroying ones I've ever seen -- this coming from a company that seems determined to utterly destroy their biggest-selling franchises by running them into the ground.
For $120 dollars, you get a surprisingly sturdy board and a "game" with which to play it. The board is no doubt hefty and solidly-built because it is fashioned from the single most rigid structure known to man: the crystalized tears of a child. Given that plenty of kids will be getting this game for the Holidays, I doubt Activision will be stripped of their anguished building materials for years to come. Please, please don't buy this game for your kids or your nephews or your grandchildren or even that one kid on the block who you absolutely hate. It will only fuel the decision making process that greenlit this blight upon this hobby we love so much.
There's not even a lot to say, really. The board, though dense as slab of fossilized despair, is fettered with sensors that never seem to quite grasp what the user is trying to accomplish. In theory, one would wave a hand or attempt a grab to accomplish a trick, but the actual execution may as well be determined by an angry spectre that, when the mood strikes, allows the motion to actually carry out the in-game representation... a few seconds later.
The biggest issue is just that the thing is genuinely hard to keep balance on. Despite it being generously flat on the bottom, it's far too easy to tip to the side on even firm carpet, resulting in wayward trips off to the side of the corridor-like levels on the more "advanced" difficulty levels. Ollies and Nollies are slow to register (if they do at all) and re-orienting oneself after doing a spin is hilariously difficult -- hilarious, that is, for all watching, laughing and pointing.
If the game didn't look so abysmally bad and bereft of the kind of create-a-lines or free-flowing sections of the "classic" Tony Hawk games, one could almost understand why it took so ridiculously long to load up a level. Instead, those brave enough to attempt to wrangle the planked beast are treated to an almost ceaseless parade of brands (Stride gum and T-Mobile phones being the most prevalent).
I feel I should stop for a second to explain my utter disdain for RIDE. See, I was actually excited about the possibilities it presented. I may be a fat, drunken slob now, but once upon a time I could actually skateboard, and I was curious if I could ever re-capture that experience outside of shattering my tibia as my muscle memory met with the reality of my increased girth. I didn't care that the screenshots looked simple, I didn't mind that the thing was going to cost a small fortune, and I certainly didn't mind that I'd look goofy while doing it; I'm, after all, unashamed to spaz out on a dance mat or flail around while doing something simulating fitness.
So when I say that Tony Hawk: RIDE is one of the worst examples of an interactive product, understand that I was coming from a place of hope, of genuine excitement. Know, too, that those hopes and enthusiasm were kicked in the nads, run over with a steam roller, poured into a wood chipper and then spat into a furnace while what I imagine to be cigar-chomping executive robber baron clichés laughed and pointed as they sipped brandy.
It's been a long time since I've actually hated a game, but I detest everything Tony Hawk: RIDE has done to its namesake, to a franchise that used to be untouchably amazing year after year and to prospective gamers everywhere. It is the epitome of what can happen when someone -- and at least one mind had to imagine and then okay this travesty -- gets dollar signs in their eyes after seeing how well clicky plastic instruments sell when bundled with a complementary game, and then proceeded full steam ahead despite what must have been at least some vocalizations that it was a terrible idea.
The game is fundamentally broken. It either practically plays itself (poorly) or is completely incapable of translating the ideas of either skateboarding or fun into something that can be represented on the screen. It is a vast, all-consuming vortex of anti-enjoyment. It is a joke that unfortunately many innocent gamers will be the butt of and it is absolutely, irredeemably bad in every single way. Do not buy this game. Do not look at this game. Do not even dare to mention it -- even in a derogatory sense. To do so would be to send the message that its existence is welcome in this plane of reality. It isn't. Please return from whence you came, oh Evil Fake Skateboard of Tears. And take your ludicrous price tag with you.
For $120 dollars, you get a surprisingly sturdy board and a "game" with which to play it. The board is no doubt hefty and solidly-built because it is fashioned from the single most rigid structure known to man: the crystalized tears of a child. Given that plenty of kids will be getting this game for the Holidays, I doubt Activision will be stripped of their anguished building materials for years to come. Please, please don't buy this game for your kids or your nephews or your grandchildren or even that one kid on the block who you absolutely hate. It will only fuel the decision making process that greenlit this blight upon this hobby we love so much.
There's not even a lot to say, really. The board, though dense as slab of fossilized despair, is fettered with sensors that never seem to quite grasp what the user is trying to accomplish. In theory, one would wave a hand or attempt a grab to accomplish a trick, but the actual execution may as well be determined by an angry spectre that, when the mood strikes, allows the motion to actually carry out the in-game representation... a few seconds later.
The biggest issue is just that the thing is genuinely hard to keep balance on. Despite it being generously flat on the bottom, it's far too easy to tip to the side on even firm carpet, resulting in wayward trips off to the side of the corridor-like levels on the more "advanced" difficulty levels. Ollies and Nollies are slow to register (if they do at all) and re-orienting oneself after doing a spin is hilariously difficult -- hilarious, that is, for all watching, laughing and pointing.
If the game didn't look so abysmally bad and bereft of the kind of create-a-lines or free-flowing sections of the "classic" Tony Hawk games, one could almost understand why it took so ridiculously long to load up a level. Instead, those brave enough to attempt to wrangle the planked beast are treated to an almost ceaseless parade of brands (Stride gum and T-Mobile phones being the most prevalent).
I feel I should stop for a second to explain my utter disdain for RIDE. See, I was actually excited about the possibilities it presented. I may be a fat, drunken slob now, but once upon a time I could actually skateboard, and I was curious if I could ever re-capture that experience outside of shattering my tibia as my muscle memory met with the reality of my increased girth. I didn't care that the screenshots looked simple, I didn't mind that the thing was going to cost a small fortune, and I certainly didn't mind that I'd look goofy while doing it; I'm, after all, unashamed to spaz out on a dance mat or flail around while doing something simulating fitness.
So when I say that Tony Hawk: RIDE is one of the worst examples of an interactive product, understand that I was coming from a place of hope, of genuine excitement. Know, too, that those hopes and enthusiasm were kicked in the nads, run over with a steam roller, poured into a wood chipper and then spat into a furnace while what I imagine to be cigar-chomping executive robber baron clichés laughed and pointed as they sipped brandy.
It's been a long time since I've actually hated a game, but I detest everything Tony Hawk: RIDE has done to its namesake, to a franchise that used to be untouchably amazing year after year and to prospective gamers everywhere. It is the epitome of what can happen when someone -- and at least one mind had to imagine and then okay this travesty -- gets dollar signs in their eyes after seeing how well clicky plastic instruments sell when bundled with a complementary game, and then proceeded full steam ahead despite what must have been at least some vocalizations that it was a terrible idea.
The game is fundamentally broken. It either practically plays itself (poorly) or is completely incapable of translating the ideas of either skateboarding or fun into something that can be represented on the screen. It is a vast, all-consuming vortex of anti-enjoyment. It is a joke that unfortunately many innocent gamers will be the butt of and it is absolutely, irredeemably bad in every single way. Do not buy this game. Do not look at this game. Do not even dare to mention it -- even in a derogatory sense. To do so would be to send the message that its existence is welcome in this plane of reality. It isn't. Please return from whence you came, oh Evil Fake Skateboard of Tears. And take your ludicrous price tag with you.
