This week at E3 brought me the chance to embarrass the crap out of myself by playing Tony Hawk: Ride. Nice.

Ride, for those with no previous knowledge, is a Tony Hawk title with a skateboard peripheral. The tech within the board is nothing we haven't already seen at work in something like the Wii Remote. There are two accelerometers within the gadget used to determine speed and change in direction. Then, on the front, back and sides of the board are motion sensors. These sensors pick up motion to about within a foot or two.

The sensors themselves worked fine. When I wasn't stumbling like a drunk on an ice pond, I was able to make use of the function easily. Just slowly and deliberately wave your hand in front of any of the sensors to initiate a grab. When you start off on a downhill, just kick your foot past one of the sensors on the side in order to kick start in the game. Simple enough, right?

The accelerometers, while they seemed to work all the time, were a little bit too much to master within 20 minutes. If you know anything about the gizmo you'll know that they read the acceleration of your motion and not the distance. Apply that concept to a skateboard and you're bound to stumble into a realm of overcompensation. And I think that's where I struggled the most with the demo. When trying to manual, I pushed down on the back of the board and kept my balance, but I always did it too fast; this initiated an Ollie. It was my fault for ignoring the needed subtle style for the game, but it's something that feels like it will present at least an initial problem for most folks. In fact, I walked around the booth and saw almost everyone working with a little overcompensation and clumsiness themselves.

I am happy to say that the learning curve certainly does not seem insurmountable. By the end of 20 minutes, even with the jackass behind me recording my failures, I felt more comfortable at work with the board. That's huge for folks wanting to give skateboarding a go, even though I'm certain it's not so much like the real thing.



The whole thing will have you working up a sweat. We played a downhill and half pipe demo. The half pipe left me greasy and panting.

As for the game itself? The graphics look like the current standard set for consoles. The build in front of me was on the 360, so I can't speak for the Wii or PS3 versions. Undoubtedly the Wii version will look a bit different, but the PS3 will likely remain the same.

During my preview, there was no mention of a storyline, open world environment or anything like that. It's probable that these things are all present, but the presentation I got a look at was straight menu-based challenge selection.

Some sites have listed an October 13th release date with a $119 price point for Tony Hawk Ride. The developer I spoke with said that these numbers have yet to be confirmed or even decided upon. It will, however, be coming this fall.