Last week I got the chance to head up to midtown and play Tony Hawk Ride with no other than the man himself, Tony Hawk. It was fantastic and I really enjoyed meeting him. Unfortunately the only camera I had was the crappy one on my Blackberry.

The game itself is focused on establishing a fully interactive and immersive world. The most important thing is the new skateboard controller which was way cool. It is a solid deck made of rubberized plastic with two accelerometers and four infrared sensors. This way it knows which way you are leaning and how fast, plus whether you are reaching for any grabs or not. You don’t actually have to touch the board to get a grab, just wave your hand through the infrared beam.

The game starts easy where it really just teaches you how to ride. Then you learn tricks and build speed. This is much more like the earlier versions of Tony Hawk. Not story based and really a series of new courses and tricks to be done. Each bit of game play is relatively short. The game was designed to be played in a group of friends and just like when you’re skating, it’s like “hey, check this out” then each person takes a turn.

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