Enjoy cramps in your legs? Wanna find an easy way to break a bone? Looking for more “Wii-motes thrown at TV” incidents? Then I think I have just the game for you. Welcome to Tony Hawk: Ride, the game that will surely have the most accidents related to it by the end of the year.

After watching a number of people try out the game I was a bit hesitant to try it out. The board didn’t look to stable and I didn’t think it was going to go end well. I decided though that I might as well give the game a try and if it ended badly at least I’d have a good story.

When I hopped on the board I asked the Activision rep how many accidents they had had so far. He told me none but I was skeptical. The board immediately felt weird. I didn’t feel at all secure or sturdy and maybe it’s because I’m not a skater but I’m telling you, it felt very awkward.

The rep explained to me some basic tricks and told me that the game was all about muscle memorization. He said it would take some practice but eventually I’d be pulling off tricks in no time. I asked him is this really practical and are people who are not skaters really going to be able to play this and he assured me that anyone can get the hang of it.

This guy is going to end up on crutches soon

The first mode I played was a trick mode where my goal was to just keep pulling off tricks. My skater went back and forth in a half pipe and all I had to do was pull off the trick. The rep explained that in easier difficulties you don’t really have to control your board, it’s guided, you only have to pull off the tricks. In harder difficulties though there is no guidance, you control how the board moves. He also explained that some of the tricks got pretty complex. He showed me some insane tricks, even your hands get involved for some tricks.

As I played through this trick mode I really didn’t feel as if I was doing anything, I just kept titling the board different ways and doing random tricks. It didn’t feel as if I was actually skating. Aside from that, my feet kept slipping off the board and I almost fell right over more than a few times. Luckily I was able to keep my balance, although that didn’t stop me from making a fool of myself in front of several gaming journalists.

I’m sure the game will get more fun once you put enough hours into the game and actually know which tricks are done by doing what. It just seems it would take an awful lot of work for this to happen. The rep took over for the next round and showed me how the game was supposed to be played. I must admit, he was pulling off some pretty cool tricks. He was moving the board all over the place and it looked like he was really skating. My only concern is that not only will most people not have enough time to dedicate to learning all the tricks and getting good but also I don’t think most people will physically be able to do it. I know that with my balance if I had tried pulling off half the tricks this rep was doing I’d be flat on my face so fast I wouldn’t even be able to see the score I got from the trick.

The next mode I got to play was more open. Here I had a bit more control over where the board went and what direction it went but it was still very much guided since I was playing on easy. In this mode I skated through an area, being timed and I had to pull of tricks on the way through the area. Once again the focus is really on the tricks, it’s easy to make the skater go off the jump, it’s what you do while in the air that counts. In the easier difficulties the board is very much assisted so the only time you really control it is when you’re in the air, that is when you pull off the moves on the board and that is when the broken bones ensue.

The concept behind this game is a good one but I just feel that it wasn’t pulled off right. When I was playing the rep had to ask people to stand back so they didn’t get hit. I can see a lot of accidents happening from this. Not only that, but the game is very hard to get the hang of and it’s not that fun. I really didn’t feel like I was skating. I felt like I was just stepping in random directions on the skateboard.

Maybe with some more time and practice I would have enjoyed Tony Hawk: Ride but after my short X09 demo I couldn’t help but to feel that it just didn’t work.