Awesome idea, really odd execution.....but still keeps you playing
So, Christmas comes and after reading tons of reviews, I'm weary. I open it, plug 'er in, it calibrates fine, and I decide to go all out on the hardcore setting, try some street. I kickstart, and I swear, my balance is terrible, cause frankly the board always just turned right. So I said, screw it. I went ahead and just switched over to the casual setting. Well, casual's alright. Besides the fact it's like sitting on a automated rail. You get to pull off all of your own tricks, which is probably the worst concocted idea out of the whole game. I try to pull off a nosegrab by holding the top sensor of the board. I instead do a kickflip indy. Hmmmmmm......... Other than the slight problems the game has with sensor registration (mainly tricks), the game still stays pretty solid.
The vert sections in this game are golden. Basically mimic exactly what it is in real life. The street sections are okay, a little too small though.
The menus are not as bad to navigate as Gamespot and IGN said, they're all easy to use.
The soundtrack is the best thing in this game. Features a lot of songs nobody knows, but they're really good songs to be honest.
The board itself is an awesome idea, just kinda badly executed. For some, the board works fine. For others, it won't respond at all, won't even register. But the board still stands up in many areas, and overall delivers an authentic experience. It does take some getting used to though, don't expect to master it within 25 minutes. A good 4 hours put into the game is expected to fully understand the board. Don't expect to play this for hours on end though, you'll only be able to play for short amounts of time before having to take an hour break, especially when you're slightly out of shape like I am.
The story mode is okay, it only consists of speed runs, trick attacks, and challenge runs cause frankly, you can't exactly get off of your board and blow something up in the game, it's just not humanly possible. The game does force you to go through story mode though, considering you only have so many skaters and levels to play with when you first load the game.
There is also a Style meter, kind of like the Star Power feature in Guitar Hero. Get enough "style", and you'll go into a LSD coma-esque situation with all of these colored blurs around you as you perform ordinary tricks. Kind of gimmicky, but overall a nice touch to the game.
The presentation of Tony Hawk: Ride gets a fat 8/10. The level design is rather okay, but it still looks nice enough. The menu presentation is just blatant advertising for T-Mobile, as a Sidekick is the entire interface of the pause menus. As said with the Style meter, it adds to the presentation.
The gameplay in Tony Hawk: Ride somehow redeems itself. While it stinks, it comes back and sucks you in to play some more. It gets a 5.9/10 for being okay.
The sound effects are rather so-so. Thuds and smacks just sound entirely computer generated. The sound of the grinds, flips, etc. sound a lot more genuine though. Excluding the soundtrack, sound in the game gets 6/10.
Overall, Tony Hawk: Ride is a bad excuse for what could've been a WAY better game, but it's still good while it lasts, and it gets 6.5/10. Most people will put it down, but you just have to give it more of a chance. Hopefully the next board-focused Tony Hawk game will be a drastic improvement. As some may consider this to be the last nail in the coffin for the Tony Hawk series, to me, I consider it to be a fresh start for the series.
Jack n Coke out.