Customer Reviews

Xbox 360 Tony Hawk: Ride Skateboard Bundle

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

So I own this game, have written a trick guide for it, and overall know how to play this game. I wanted to write a review so that others can see the high and low aspects of this game and not just people that give it a score of 1 and go into a rant because they can't figure out the game.

Let's face it folks, not everybody will figure this game out. This game is not for everybody. I am horrible at Madden. I have tried Madden games since Madden 93. After Madden 05, I slowed down with the games and they just got so complex to the point where I just stumbled through playing them. I will not rate those games as a 1 star because I am not good at them.

The joy of this game is that it will trick you. This game is Tony Hawk to its core. This is a completely new Tony Hawk experience, and you need to learn how to play the new experience. Most people will see a skateboard controller, see the Tony Hawk name, and assume that Tony Hawk went soft on us. They will assume that Tony Hawk just tried to capitalize on the casual gamers by making an easy game where you just stand on a skateboard controller, wiggle it a little, and do a 900.

Anybody that thinks that way will be in for quite a bit shock when they start playing this game. You should be afraid of this game. Not because it is bad, but because once you figure out how to play, you will realize that this game plays alot like Tony Hawk 1, but with the inclusion of manuals and a different way of rotating when in vert. This game is for the Tony Hawk fans. This game is not for a casual gamer. Then again, I would like to see any casual gamer dominate in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.

Every single review I have read of this game that has given it a bad review, is because of 1 of 2 things:
1.) The person could not figure out how to play, so they immediately take that as a personal attack on them, and say the game is horrible.
2.) They did not allow for the full 4 feet of space in between objects and the sensors on the controller when calibrating the controller.

Now onto the rest of the review...

Learning Curve
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The learning curve is either very fast or very slow depending on how stubborn you are about learning how to play the game. The game will start you with some tutorials, but just give you a taste and not finish off the rest of the tutorials. If you go through those tutorials, the learning curve is very small. If you do not want to do that, google my guide, and I know for a fact that the learning curve will actually be smaller using my guide than trying the videos.

Not knowing how to play and then wondering why it is difficult would be the equivalent of me hitting one button on Madden 10 and getting mad that they did not map every single action to my A button. If you are willing to learn instead of just trying the game without any knowledge, than you will find the learning curve is not bad. In fact, it is very small.

Gameplay
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The gameplay is split up into 5 modes:
Speed, Trick, Challenge, Free Skate, and Vert

I will go into each mode and explain them along with the up and down sides with each mode
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I will start by saying that to know what kind of score you need for maximum points on a specific session mode, just look at the default high scores. Try to beat the default high scores to get the maximum points (which is normally 15 points per session mode)

Speed:
In this mode, this will appear on the surface as simple, until you realize what you need to do. You need to get to the end within a certain amount of time in order to get point for your run. Most runs will give you 15 session points. Basically, you need session points to unlock new areas, skaters, and extra challenges.

What you need to do as you go through the run is collect the green bubbles which take time off of the timer going up to make your run shorter. Some of the good bubbles, like the 3 and 4 second bubbles, you have to hit a jump or a specific grind to get them.

The biggest issue with this mode is that it is a speed run. This is Tony Hawk here. We want tricks and insane, outlandish combos.

The upside is that the mode is fun. For the people that can't figure out tricks and you want to have a Tony Hawk Ride party, just let them play this mode.

Trick:
This is pretty self explanatory. Try to hit a run and get the high score.

Doing tricks is very easy. Anybody that has trouble should google my guide and see how to do tricks. They are super easy.

Once you figure out how to do tricks, on casual, unless you miss a jump, which is rare, the game present no challenge, and doing tricks is too simple.

Taking the difficulty up to Confident or Hardcore makes trick mode much more fun.

Do not complain about tricks being hard or the controller being unresponsive. I am a 250lbs man and can hit any trick in the game. I do not know what other people's problems are. I almost went into a rant again about people saying games are bad because they are bad at them, but I will hold off.

Challenge:
This is actually my favorite mode of the game. The challenges will start easy, but ramp up as you go through the later stages. The challenges will challenge you to keep up trick transitions and combos.

The only gripe I have about this mode is that you truly need to know what you are doing in the game and how to do all the tricks before this mode starts. In Tony Hawk: Ride, you will just be plopped into the challenges later on in the game and the game will just expect that you already when through all the videos.

One challenge in particular, the challenge is to do an advanced grab over a break in a QP, then jump onto small bleachers, grind them, jump off onto a manual, and then jump onto another set of bleachers to finish off the combo. The problem is that the game never explicitly tells you, "Hey, We are doing something new, go watch the tutorial video on how to do it" Because of this, even myself, I would find myself scratching my head trying to figure out how to do some of this stuff. The game literally assumed that you will go through the beginning tutorial stuff, and then choose to personally go through the other training videos and never really say anything about the fact that is a a good idea to go there since there is no other way to know how to do some of the stuff it tells you to do outside of a google search.

Other than that, challenge mode is amazing and super fun.

Free Skate:
This is what it is. Just skate a run for fun. That is it.

I don't have any gripes with this mode as it is good for practicing.

Vert:
This is also what it sounds like. Vert is pretty fun. Popping the board up at just the correct time to hit a 720 is very satisfying.

The gripe I have with this is turning in Vert. Sometimes it makes sense to tile the board back, but you should be tilting it forward. Really, you do not need to turn in Vert unless you are going for acheivements (well, one or 2 half pipes require you to turn just after you launch down, but that is it)

Other than that, Vert is super fun. The way to do big spins to to pop your board near the top of the pipe, and learning the timing is half of the fun.

Sound
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Like every Tony Hawk game, the soundtrack is awesome. The songs are good. The sound effects sound great.

Really, not much needs to be said since there is nothing bad. Good sound effects, good soundtrack.

Graphics
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This is one area where this game is getting set to 4 star from me. The graphics are not near as good as what Activision has shown from other Tony Hawk games on the 360. Project 8 and Proving Grounds (the latest Tony Hawk) put this game to shame by far. This is the latest Tony Hawk, so it should at the very minimum have graphics that are on par with its previous installment. The graphics on this make the 360 version look more like an average wii version and is definately not the eye candy we got with Project 8 or Proving Grounds.

Story
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Yeah, just kidding. This is not THUG or THUG 2, there is not story.

Overall
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This is a great game. It plays and feels like a good Tony Hawk game. The controls feel right and doing tricks is satisfying. Trust me, once you learn how easy it is to do flick tricks from an ollie setup, you will be like me and fall in love with the flick tricks. I love going from flick trick into grind (not a 50-50, but something wierd for fun, like a salad grind), jump out of the grind, hit a manual, do a pop shove-it, then jump back into another grind. That seems like a lot, but it is my favorite combo and just feels satisfying to hit.

This game is great because you are not just hitting a button to do a trick. Yes, you are doing a motion that possibly has nothing to do with the real trick, but it still incredbly satisfying to hit tricks in this game.

That satisfaction of hitting the tricks is what makes this game so incredibly fun. This game would have gotten 5 out of 5, but the graphics are very sub par for a Tony Hawk game, so it lost a star for graphics, which is a very valid reason to take a star off.

Based on some reviews, I thought this game may disapoint, but I really enjoy it. It took some getting used to and a lot of balance, but it is a lot of fun for families. I'm not a gamer, so I had no previous expectations from Activision or the builders regarding the franchise. I thought the skateboard was well built and responsive. I thought I would be terrible, and I figured it out in a couple of hours, laughing (hard), the entire time. If you want something fun to do with the kids buy it! I thought it was worth the $ especially if they make another game for this perriferal.

My wife and I saw this in the store and thought it sounded like fun. Took it home, and the first board wouldn't calibrate. After an exchange, the second board got through the calibration, and started training.

The idea is great. Even the plans for the controls seem decent. Unfortunately, the board fails completely. It either registers moves you didn't try to do, or fails to register the moves that you did. While you can pull off some cool tricks, usually they're by chance and not at all what you intended. Even getting through the tutorial is difficult, if not impossible, as on my board, at least, the "flick tricks" don't register. Doing google searches shows that I'm not the only one having this problem.

We ended up skipping the flick trick part of the tutorial, and playing through. Things got better at that point, and we had some fun doing the initial challenges, races, and trick competitions. However, as the challenges get tougher, the failure of the board to register what you're doing becomes increasingly frustrating.

In all, it provided a couple hours of enjoyment, but definitely not worth the $120 pricetag.

This game is so much fun, Yes its like Skate boarding, Yes it is a challenge but it is one of the most fun gamed I have ever played. The first board I received was defective and would not calibrate but the replacement board works great and synced up right away, I did not let this effect my review because these things happen. The causal skate mode is awesome the next step up is challenging but with practice it gets better, myself I like the challenge. I didn't start playing rock band on expert and I wont play ride on expert right away either. To me its just like rock band and game like it where you have to work to become better. Again THIS IS THE MOST FUN I HAVE EVER HAD PLAYING VIDEO GAMES! and Ive been gamer for over 20yrs

I have been a Big Fan of Tony Hawk games for years. When I saw this game being advertised I was in amazed and I wanted it. Before purchasing this new idea for video game skate boarding I decided to read a few of the Amazon review and I got a lot of mixed vibes of the product leaving me to decided on just trying it on my own.
Once the item arrived of course I busted it out of the package and put in right in to my Xbox 360. Before you begin the game requires the users to configure the game to your boarding stance by choosing Goofy for Normal. Then you have to calibrate the board the whole process was like 5 to 6 mins, it wasn't bad at all. This process is not something you have to do each time you play the game but the recommend that you do this when you replace the batteries in the board or if you sync the board to another Xbox. As for game play with the board it's awesome. You will need to have balance to play this game and few of the movements of the video game does follow the same principals of skateboarding but not many, but over all the game is fun. As a warning you will need at least 6 feet in diameter around the board for the sensors. Any movement around the board will be detected even if the person playing on the board is not the one triggering the sensor. If you want to have a better game play experience you must do this.
Over all this was a good start for skateboarding game and I hope to see me to come with greater improvements.

If there ever was a failed experiment in peripheral technology, its the skateboard controller. I think we can all blame this game as being the tipping point in the "too many add-ons" argument for video games these days.
To be bluntly honest: it doesn't work. The motion sensors in the skateboard are either too sensitive or do not respond at all. Attempting to do an ollie will be split between accomplishing the jump, entering a manual, doing a flip trick, or nothing at all. While it is a sturdy piece of plastic, its too small for anyone over 5 ft tall and you'll find yourself sliding over a carpeted surface.
The game itself is just bland with the environments being unnoticeable. They're frustrating to navigate since there is no way to slow your character down aside from running into a wall. The graphics look as though they came from the previous generation and there's just a general sentiment of grabbing thin air in a desperate attempt to keep the dying early 00's skateboarding craze going.
There are far better games that you can spend your money on. In fact, you could even buy a REAL skateboard and learn to ride that. It would be a better experience than attempting to play this game.

I bought the game and enjoyed the game play even though I could not get the board to always register my moves. It provides a great workout, which I really appreciate. Also reminds me of my skateboard years as a teen, and I feel really cool making my computer skater do all the moves I could never pull off on my skateboard as a kid. I think that movement register is based on light sensitivity and so it might work better once the sun starts to shine here in Alaska again. A problem I dealt with was lack of battery life. I would use it for an hour or two twice or three times. Then I will put the board away for a week or two. Then when I try to session again, the batteries were completely dead. I returned two boards because of this problem. The third one did not have this problem. Once I received a non-defective board I have really been enjoying the game. We play it alot at my young adult ministry at church in party mode. Juwan got 128,000 points on a trick run last weekend, and now he has a really big head.

I only played this game once. It was decent, the controls(motion/tilting) for free-skating were a bit too sensitive and hard to use. Beginner mode was much better.(on rails skating, all you do is jump and trick) Some of the tricks didn't always perform or performed the wrong trick. Overall, it was an ambitious title that probably succeeded at creating a great concept that could then be improved upon.

And here comes the "But...":

This game could've been a great first step...if it wouldn't have fallen on its face.
As I said, I played the game once. When I went back to play the game again, the board didn't work. Period. It wouldn't turn on or anything. If I held the guide button or all the buttons down, it would blink, but it would not turn on. I tried replacing the batteries. I tried leaving the batteries out to let any cached memory drain. Nothing. I finally went on the support sight. Sure enough, there was a FAQ that said if the board was not turning on, contact support and send it in for a replacement.

That did it. For all the time and money I'd have to waste getting it fixed, it wasn't worth it. That game isn't that good. Granted, I may have gotten to like it more and grown accustomed to the controls, IF I could've played it.

Anyway, think twice before buying this. Read reviews, watch trailers; make sure it looks good enough to you to invest the possible time and money should it go lemon on you.

I was worried about this game when it came out. I thought it was an interesting concept, but the professional reviews were all over the place. A few really good ones, a lot of mediocore reviews, and some bad ones.

After reading the reviews of the people on here, and the professional reviews, I have to disagree with a lot of the negative ones.

Once you get into this game, it is really fun. But there are a couple things you should note:

1. I am a 6'4" and weigh over 200lbs. I have large feet. I have found this game works better for me in my socks or barefoot, than in slippers, shoes or anything like that.

2. Don't wear baggy pants while playing. I have found that if the bottom of your pants are baggy, them might get in the way of the sensor.

3. Make sure there are no chairs, tables, or items within the line of the sensors.

4. It is easy to accidently trip the sensor with one of the previous ways mentioned. IT WILL SHOW YOU THIS ON SCREEN! This might be the reason so many people have trouble with this game, and give up on it so fast. If you're willing to give it a chance it works quite well and is a pretty good workout on your calves, as well as tests your balance.

My gamercard is "AOS Pyrochaos" on the xbox 360, in case you would like to verify my review.

I just got this game from gamestop for $20.00(excluding tax)and it is the best thing in the world! Also it works with shred software too this is by far the best skateboarding video game I have played. It is worth your money