Their comes a time in gaming history where the technology is truly ground breaking. Where it will stand in time as the innovator, leading to bigger and better things. The N64’s rumble pack, playstations duel analog controller, the Wii controller, guitar hero etc. Unfortunately where those succeeded on being innovative, this one seems to miss its mark.
The Tony hawk franchise has been slowly pummeling itself on a downward spiral of games until Skate came along and knocked off its horse completely. Taking a 2 year hiatus the series, it planned to make the skating experience as authentic as possible, what we get is something that just doesn’t feel that put together in any aspect. The board has two accelerometers and four sensors to track movement. The sides will track you kicking the board for more speed while the front and back are for grabs. Don’t get us wrong it feels very durable but (and maybe it was just us) you do have this overwhelming feeling like your going to fall all the time.
Getting on the board and turning the game on will put you through the configuration process, once done your ready to begin. You’ll notice their are 3 types of modes when you get in which are career, online and party play. Their are 3 difficultly types, casual, confident and expert, the first of which basically plays itself. Career mode lets you run through the story but is the same 3 types of play throughout the entire game. Stages seem pretty linear offering little variety between them, thats also do to the fact that you feel limited in movement when on the board. The game is pretty stripped of features and gameplay elements, from the single player to the online player which still seems to be single player. The soundtrack is the real hero in this offering a great mix bag and has never failed the Tony hawk series before.
For $120 the game only offers a casual experience that not everyone will get into. With only a great soundtrack to hold on to its tough to tell what direction future games might go from here, one thing is for certain, it might be back to the drawing board for this one.
overall = 6.5
