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"Most snarky critics had their minds set before ever seeing/playing the game.
I'm proud of what we created; it's innovative, responsive & fun."
-- Tony Hawk responding to the negative reviews for Tony Hawk: Ride
It's perfectly understandable why Activision believed Tony Hawk: Ride would be a success.
Veteran skateboarder Tony Hawk reportedly came to Activision with the idea of creating a peripheral-based evolution of his stagnating skating series. Based on Activision's success with the Guitar Hero franchise, the internal excitement for DJ Hero and the huge reaction Nintendo's seen with motion and hardware accessories on Wii, Tony Hawk: Ride was by all rights a sound business decision.
Unfortunately for Tony Hawk: Ride, its success was premised on a philosophically flawed notion about why these games click. In this crucial misstep, the game doomed from day one. The primary reason games like Guitar Hero and Wii Sports have been such monstrous successes and resonate so intensely both with gamers and large groups of people who on any given day wouldn't even consider themselves gamers is because they're rooted in fantasy. These games let them do something they cannot do in real-life.
I couldn't finish the tutorial in Tony Hawk: Ride, unable to progress past the introduction sequence. The start of Tony Hawk: Ride removes the ability to change the skater's direction, having the user focus on understanding basic manipulation of the skateboard peripheral itself. You start with ollies (accomplished by tilting the board back with one foot) and progress from there. It's a few sections before the game asks the player to differentiate between tilting the board up and then twisting it left or right, or tilting the board up and moving it left or right before setting it on the ground again.
I was, uh, unable to differentiate the two.
Instead of pulling off a flip trick or whatever, I knocked into the tiny Christmas tree next to the couch a few times. Before long, I turned off my Xbox 360 and concluded Tony Hawk: Ride just didn't work. I've been an advocate of games using peripherals to enhance experiences for years, but they only work as an extension to escape into a fantasy and pretend you're good at some thing you're not. Tony Hawk: Ride wants to teach you how to ride a skateboard for real. There is very little fantasy involved. In most respects, Tony Hawk: Ride is an interactive tutorial for actually learning how to skateboard.
It's not a surprise when someone wants to learn how to play the guitar after experiencing Boston's "More Than A Feeling" for the first time in Rock Band (though it's probably more Fall Out Boy) But there's also a reason individuals who are already well-versed on the guitar will still find themselves sitting down with this simplified version of the real thing and enjoying themselves: it's easier, an escape from the reality that most of us will never possess the same abilities as The Who's Pete Townshend.
Tony Hawk: Ride is an interactive tutorial for actually learning how to skateboard
I've never bought the argument Rock Band or Guitar Hero don't make any sense when you can just learn to actually play. Tony Hawk: Ride, however, is a different story. Pulling off random tricks is not difficult in Tony Hawk: Ride, as it's possible to create a string of stylized moves by just hysterically flailing about, but when tasked with doing specific kind of tricks, Tony Hawk: Ride requires a very real set of learned physical and mental memorization that's more akin to, well, real skateboarding.
That's the crux of Tony Hawk: Ride's failure and why Hawk's assessment of the critical response is off-base. The game is simply not fun and when I tried to play, it only served as a painful reminder that I can't skateboard. I didn't need a video game to make that any clearer, but failing to execute what the game was proposing to be a very basic skateboarding trick over and over only rubbed the fact in my face. Thanks, Tony Hawk: Ride, but I already knew pulling off a flip trick wasn't in my repertoire. No need to remind me.
Adding a realistic peripheral doesn't make me feel like a bad ass skateboarder, but the original games made that a great, accessible experience. Those games let me do something basic I can't actually do -- balance on a skateboard. Tony Hawk: Ride assumes that's something I want to learn. As it turns out, I don't (and can't). If I change my mind...you know what? Maybe I'll just buy a real skateboard.
[image credit: flickr / aldoaldoz and jmtosses]
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Comments
Displaying 1–20 of 23
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kwfang
something funny happned at the midnight release for MW2 they gave us trivia questions at if we got them right they would give us something like what they would use to advertise the game and one of the questions they asked was "Why was Modern Warfare 2 Released on this day" and in back of the store you heard some random guy say this "because Tony Hawk Ride was coming out the same day" i lol at that
So maybe people rather play on a controller (or learn how to ride a real skateboard) than to play on a fake skateboard and may i say look kinda dumb trying to learn your first time playing it i like the Tony Hawk Games but his one didnt catch my attention and i dont think it caught many other peoples attention too
GatsuBlackSword
Other Than The Board Issues, did anyone bother to look at how many tech issues there were with the actual game? Go and watch the Gamespot video review they show huge technical issues like Skate boarding on the ceiling, clipping and getting caught in textures. And i did not even mention the garbage online play. I'd rather play Tony Hawk 2 for PSOne.
Grimlock34a
Who is that girl on the board? I'd like to "Hawk" her if you know what I mean (and not virtually either).
Grimlock34a
you people are focusing on the wrong thing. who is that girl with the great a$$ in that pic?
darkchaos_1000
I think the problem isn't learning how to play ride or even the desire to learn to ride a skateboard the problem is the fun factor or shall i say the road to the fun factor when i learn how to skateboard it took me years and alot of cuts and scrapes i didn't want but it took me a long time b4 it started getting fun. no 1 wants to come home to hurt there self jus to have fun playin ride wen u get good plus the fact that its not a come home and relax game makes it not worth it i like games that no matter wat i do i can have fun and relax guitar hero doesnt take that away from u but ride does so thats y i think its a fail
BertSaxby
Should've included one of those Hoverboards from Back to the Future...then they'd have had something.
gambitjuggalo
tony may have failed in the world of gaming but he did end up making the worlds biggest doorstop in the process.
the_azure_knight
two words "motion control"
qulqu_nick
see the issue is that if you can be good a ride then you are likely to have already learned skateboarding. Thus it makes no sense to play a game to do something you can already do. hence Natal and the wii *and most likely the Sony idea* can't made an FPS, cause i'm not a 1337 sniper/ marksmen of any kind. so i can imagine i am in a video game that gives me perfect aim, or close to it.
Adrenalyn915
As a former skater (I stopped about a year back, I just don't have time) and a current gamer, I think the reason Tony Hawk: Ride is not a success is because of its difficulty... for those who have no experience in skating, it is hard to jump onto a board, find your balance, and then try to play the game as well, it is just to difficult. As for those who have have skating experience, like myself, I think (since I haven't tried the game, I am just speculating) that the game will be too easy... I can do a manual while moving on a real skateboard, and a game where it seems like all you have to do is manual standing still, and bend down to touch the sensors would way too simple for me. They cannot make the game much more difficult for those who have the ability to do more, it's not like they are going to make you do a kickfilp on a piece of plastic on your livingroom, right next to your tv. So it is too hard for those who don't skate, and too easy for those who do, therefore no fun for anyone...
sandboxgamer
when tony hawk was describing the prototype board he said it was a wii mote and two pieces of plastic i guess nothing changed LMFAO. Anyone who bought this game i'm sorry that you lost 137 bucks on the piece of crap.
gamegodtre
well my colleague at work who does skateboard said he likes it so maybe only skateboarders like it?
orangecrow
my project Natal skateboard is way cooler
littledragon092
yeah buy a real board, they are about the same price. but a real one comes with a turning system and doesn't look like a mini snowboard.
Nightshade386
There's a certain level of satisfaction that comes from the fantasy experience that video games have to offer. It's the ability to do things that you can't do in real life. At 5'6" & 145lbs, I'm never going to be the starting middle LB for the NY Giants. But when I play Madden, I can do just that. I really enjoy the SSX games, but you'd never see me get on a real snowboard because I had a skateboard as a kid and couldn't pull off more than a mediocre ollie.
So when you put a $120 game out that requires that I be good at the actual activity instead of being lost in the fantasy, I'm immediately put off. I couldn't even rent this game if I wanted to. In order to experience it, I'd have to shell out 120 bones.
Apsalus07 ShowHide
Skate boarding is for d-bags anyway, who wants to learn to look like a trashy 90s loser with bad posture?
Traveller69
@slushomg
Um...no. Hand-eye co-ordination cannot be compared to full-body balance and co-ordination. That's like comparing apples to venison steaks.....they're both food...that's about as far as that goes.
I looked very skeptically at Guitar Hero back when it was released as I love music and wish I could play guitar. Now, I assume that if I put the time in and practiced every day I could get passably good at playing a real guitar but the fact remains that I didn't want to do this so I settled on appreciating the results of other people's efforts. When a friend of mine finally convinced me to play GH (actually it was #2 on PS2) I struggled but was quite willing to keep trying, by the time I was good enough to add the final button integrating said button was far easier than understanding how to play the game in the first place. For me it was easier to add the last button than to get the timing right on easy. I believe this is because GH is based on the same thing we have been using to play games since the begining: hand-eye co-ordination.
There is a huge difference between GH and TH:R. Ride is predicated on the idea that everyone who would want to play it actually has the balance and full-body co-ordination necessary to actually skateboard. And in the gaming community this is just not the case. Not to lump every gamer together or anything as I can't possibly know what anyone else does with their spare time. Unlike playing a guitar I actually did put some time into trying to skateboard, albeit this was a long time ago, and discovered that I did have the balance and physical ability to at least do the basics. But, as with the guitar, I was unwilling to put the time into cultivating my skills - in this case it just wasn't my thing. I have no desire to play a game that mimics skateboarding with an actual board.
Manipulating buttons or doing everything on a fake board except actually rolling (and hopefully) leaving the ground, I'll take the buttons any day.
Apsalus07 ShowHide(5 Replies)
Skate boarding is for d-bags anyway, who wants to learn to look like a trashy 90s loser with bad posture?
masterps3 ShowHide
Dude I'll just get a real Skateboard big failure on tony hawk wow I want one of my fat friends to try a trick on my fake board when they are scared to get on the real one.
Hanfur
very true
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