I really, really want to hate this. I mean, Tony Hawk games are aces, and all other extreme sports games (Matt Hoffman, Kelly Slater, BMX XXX and even the actually pretty brilliant Aggressive Inline) pale in comparison. And now EA (who are like Satan in game publisher form) are trying to muscle in on Tony’s sacred domain.
How very dare them.
But… It’s good. There. I said it. Quietly, so Tony won’t hear. It took a while for the controls to work in my head, and even after 40 minutes play I’m still trying to press Y to grind and letting go of A hoping for an ollie, but skate. (the lowercase “s” and full-stop are mandatory, it seems) is a much more technical game than Tony Hawk. You get far greater control over the minutiae of riding your deck, and more skill is needed to pull off even basic grabs and flips. It’s different, and that’s somehow unnerving to me, as I feel like I’m cheating on Tony.
Sorry Tony. I’ll love you again when Proving Grounds comes out.
Kelly is amazing. End of!