First Impressions of Tony Hawk RIDE’s Board Controller

We jump on Tony Hawk's new plastic board controller to see what it's like to shred carpet.

After seeing Tony Hawk himself pull out the long-awaited board controller for RIDE at Microsoft’s Monday press conference, I couldn’t wait to hop aboard myself. And today I got a chance.

Though Activision reps will gladly explain how intuitive and natural it feels for a skateboarding game, not much really feels right about standing on a plastic plank in front of a TV. Even so, it does feel well built for what’s still a prototype. No worries about snapping this thing.

I can’t claim to be the most coordinated person on the planet, but everything from simple rocking back and forth to steer to tilting the board back to ollie had a steep learning curve, and it wasn’t until about five times through a basic intro course that I could even complete all the basics (jump over a flaming barrel, etc.) with any degree of competence. And to be honest: Even then, I sucked.

It might have all come together eventually, but in the end, the board seems to move classic Tony Hawk button mashing to board spinning and swirling. None of the moves I executed on the board even seemed to perform the same trick, which is exactly what you might suspect the issue with this setup would be.  Just do a bunch of crazy stuff and it does tricks. Not so different from the old games, in truth, but not really much a leap forward either. It wouldn’t be fair to judge it all based on one five-minute ride, but my skepticism that a bunch of IR sensors and accelerometers can ever translate a bunch of clumsy maneuvers on carpet into a McTwist remains in place.