A message to all developers of extreme sports games. For the love of God, stop making those annoying and confusing graffiti menus! It's not cool!
No skateboard is looking at that menu and thinking. Wow, that looks just like Skateboard culture, oooh! SSX On Tour is a prime example of having one of the worst menus in game history!
@Orionsaint: This. I'll get on the motion control bandwagon when it's perfect and can still be played 5-10 years later. Until then, I'm happy playing games while laying back on my recliner.
I'm thankful that most PS3 games have the option to disable SixAxis controls.
@Orionsaint: I think you're wrong in saying that only Nintendo did motion controllers right. I would point to Guitar Hero which came out on the PS2 before the Wii was released(by about 2 years actually). That is the reason ACTIVISION has gone for these huge clunky plastic controllers, but since they forced Robomodo into a short development cycle with a very limited amount of time to develop for a game with a peripheral it hindered development.
Also I'm fairly certain ACTIVISION didn't have RedOctane make the board hence the lack of functionality of the board controllers in relation to Guitar Hero controllers.
This is an ACTIVISION rides any good idea to death in as many ways as possible thing...not a Nintendo and their control scheme are ruining the industry thing.(not that I disagree with that)
@RaginKaGin21: How is Guitar Hero Motion control? You're pressing buttons. Except the buttons aren't on a plastic controller. They're on a plastic guitar.
It's crap like this that gives motion controls a bad name. People unfamiliar with good motion sensing are going to be more discouraged by this junk and everybody's going to think all motion sensing will be inherently inaccurate and bad in all circumstances.
There have been just a few glimmers of great motion sensing scenarios in gaming these days, so you CAN actually see great potential. It's just overshadowed by worthless software and it makes the possibility of a major game with great motion controls as its primary method of input seem at 0.
Motion sensing is fundamentally revolutionary. It can provide a completely unprecedented degree of precision that no amount of buttons and joysticks can recreate. It can create intuitive, graceful and simple motions that are not only far more complex than what a standard controller can communicate, but also does it requiring a lot less buttons or none at all.
The problem here is crap like this. This is unrealized technology here to some degree, and it's a lot easier to make something like Tony Hawk: Ride than it is to make something like what I've mentioned above. 90% of core gamers really don't believe in motion sensing at all, and it's shovelware like this that makes it obvious why they don't believe it. I still believe in motion sensing as being the next great step in gaming and will always do until something truly revolutionary comes along that proves everyone wrong, but until that happens I'll just sit here becoming increasingly frustrated at the complete and utter trash that gets released like this here game.
You know what I've learned from Motion Controls so far... I like buttons. I really like buttons. And analog sticks. And pressure sensitivity. And things that make little clicks. And Home buttons. And power buttons. Remote controls. Type writers. Switches. Levers. Stamps. And Gutenberg style printing presses.
I've been a proponent of new fangled technology for a long time, and I still most definitely am. Hell, I'm still telling anyone in earshot to take every chance you can to see animated movies in 3d. And I can't wait to see it implemented properly in the home.
But sometimes, a button is just the best way to control something. I mean, would a big red nuclear missile launch button be nearly as cool if it was replaced with a wave of the hand? Wait... wait... don't answer that. I'm picturing it in my mind right now... and it's kinda awesome.
@Psudonym: Waving your hand would certainly be cool, but would make it all too easy for mistakes. What if all the guy had to do in WarGames was wave his hand with the partner? When he would refuse, the partner would insist "WAVE YOUR HAND, SIR!" but would eventually wave both hands, and the world would be screwed.
@DukeOfPwn: As humorous as the ensuing nuclear holocaust would be, it just points directly at the heart of the matter. Good controls need to have zero tolerance for misread signals.
Great review! I've already decided against this game, but I admit I"m curious what the "hardcore skater" crowd thinks of it over the "hardcore gamers".
@ryoshi: Probably the same things real musicians think about rock band.
1. Why did I go through the effort of learning this if I can make just as much if not more money from making a fake version.
2.How can I cash in on this.
@sunpop: I don't think all (or even most) musicians think that about Rock Band, just the ones you happen to hear about on here. I've been playing piano for fifteen years and guitar for five and I love both Rock Band and Guitar Hero (and recently, DJ Hero).
@e-friend cuts you: There's a huge difference between "knows how to skate" and "can pull off tricks like they do in skating games". I'm looking for people who enjoy the former and aren't paid giant sponsorships to do the latter.
Or do you think that skaters don't play videogames? Do people on the high-school football team never play Madden?
@ryoshi: Do people on football teams play Backyard Football? I feel like skate kids would go towards something like Skate (Or to a lesser degree, the good THPS games) instead.
By all accounts (i.e. nearly every published review) this game deserves to bail, and hard. Still, I can't help but feel bad for Robomodo. This was an enormously ambitious project (too ambitious, probably) and it's going to fall all the harder for it.
Is it too soon to request a post-mortem? Probably more fun to read than the game is to play.
Can't help but wonder if this piece of hardware might actually "work" with better software, or if the sensors are to blame for the unresponsive controls.
I'll put this review in my time capsule entitled "I Told Ya Motion Games Suck," and I'll bring it out again when the rest of the genre fails to compare to sitting on my ass and using a controller.
Are there decent motion-controlled games? Of course. They should be in a separate genre, or perhaps a completely separate console. Yes it would be vastly expensive, but if people put down money to buy Motion Controlled Console, they would likely be interested in spending money on the games and peripherals required to play them.
I can't blame them for trying, and unfortunately it sounds like so much is wrong on this first try. I'm sure someone will eventually get it right, or at least market it correctly, much like the Wii.
Right now, I did not read this review. Reading it will tell me that the peripheral sucks and the game blows. I already know this. I knew this was terrible idea from the day it was announced. Unfortunately, all the stupid little middle-school boarderzzz will buy this game in droves and Activision will make sequels and spin offs and no one will be the wiser.
@vid3oman64: I don't think those kids can really afford a game that's $120.
I'm betting this fails. People will spend that much on Guitar Hero, because Guitar Hero is cool. But this is just positively lame, and there's been barely any press on it, so they basically fucked themselves. No worries, though.
@Ben Nadler: Your right they can't. But that's why they have parents. When I was in middle school I couldn't afford 90% of the stuff I owned, at that age you usually don't. So none the less they'll eventually get their parents to buy it for them.
@Co0ki3Mon2t3r: I dunno, my parents refused to buy me anything entertainment related unless it was Christmas. And they'd never buy me anything as expensive as a console. I had to buy all my shit myself, and work at a crappy movie theater to do so, so I can't relate.
My brother hangs out with the skater crowd, and they play a lot of video games, and when I asked them about Ride none of them knew what it was, except for one kid, who said he wasn't getting it.
I love the old Tony Hawk games, but I think having a motion device for it is just a horrible idea, and its made it too expensive. You think in this economic climate people are gonna drop $120 on a game for the holidays? For most kids, that's the choice between one "big" game or two "normal" games. For the same price that kid could get Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin's Creed 2, the two biggest sellers of this season so far.
I'm just saying, you really think this is gonna sell like hotcakes? Are YOU gonna buy?
@Ben Nadler: No I'm not saying this will sell like hot cakes but I think the idea of it alone will make it sell. Kids will like the concept and get their parents to purchase it for them whether they know its a crappy game or not. I think with games like these reviews don't really matter because in the end parents are the ones purchasing the game for their kids.
I believe game reviews really come into play when the consumer is buying the game for themselves. Because they want to know what they are getting is a solid game that wasn't a waste of their hard earned cash. IMO.
Sounds about in line with everything I've heard everywhere else, yep. Giant Bomb's Quick Look of the game doomed it for me; as soon as I saw how unresponsive it was, I knew the game was doomed.
@Taggart6: Is it at least playable with the balance board? If not then it was dumb to NOT include the support. Maybe it would control better this way and be more than just a crappy attempt at making cash with a useless peripheral...
I heard a rumor that they were using this until a week before beta, and that they only had 3 or 4 of them built, and that ACTIVISION was requiring that you couldn't even test things unless you were using a board...
#ReasonsToIgnoreEverythingActiv...
Luckily when Robomodo was struggling to make a game ACTIVISION was out there promoting the cool looking(poorly functioning) board they had just announced for it.
04:27 PM
No skateboard is looking at that menu and thinking. Wow, that looks just like Skateboard culture, oooh! SSX On Tour is a prime example of having one of the worst menus in game history!
04:23 PM
The only way motion control could take over the entire industry, is if motion control is perfected 100% and it's not!
The other way is to have the process happen gradually, by giving players the options to use regular controllers.
Tony Hawk Ride, did neither of these. All those videos. Where they showed us how accurately the game played. It was all just one big ruse.
04:35 PM
I'm thankful that most PS3 games have the option to disable SixAxis controls.
04:41 PM
04:53 PM
Also I'm fairly certain ACTIVISION didn't have RedOctane make the board hence the lack of functionality of the board controllers in relation to Guitar Hero controllers.
This is an ACTIVISION rides any good idea to death in as many ways as possible thing...not a Nintendo and their control scheme are ruining the industry thing.(not that I disagree with that)
04:53 PM
I can even think of one game where using it as the primary control scheme makes the game better (L...er..Flower)
05:09 PM
05:11 PM
"I don't appreciate your ruse ma'am. Your cunning attempt to trick me."
04:23 PM
There have been just a few glimmers of great motion sensing scenarios in gaming these days, so you CAN actually see great potential. It's just overshadowed by worthless software and it makes the possibility of a major game with great motion controls as its primary method of input seem at 0.
Motion sensing is fundamentally revolutionary. It can provide a completely unprecedented degree of precision that no amount of buttons and joysticks can recreate. It can create intuitive, graceful and simple motions that are not only far more complex than what a standard controller can communicate, but also does it requiring a lot less buttons or none at all.
The problem here is crap like this. This is unrealized technology here to some degree, and it's a lot easier to make something like Tony Hawk: Ride than it is to make something like what I've mentioned above. 90% of core gamers really don't believe in motion sensing at all, and it's shovelware like this that makes it obvious why they don't believe it. I still believe in motion sensing as being the next great step in gaming and will always do until something truly revolutionary comes along that proves everyone wrong, but until that happens I'll just sit here becoming increasingly frustrated at the complete and utter trash that gets released like this here game.
03:29 PM
I've been a proponent of new fangled technology for a long time, and I still most definitely am. Hell, I'm still telling anyone in earshot to take every chance you can to see animated movies in 3d. And I can't wait to see it implemented properly in the home.
But sometimes, a button is just the best way to control something. I mean, would a big red nuclear missile launch button be nearly as cool if it was replaced with a wave of the hand? Wait... wait... don't answer that. I'm picturing it in my mind right now... and it's kinda awesome.
04:00 PM
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03:12 PM
1. Why did I go through the effort of learning this if I can make just as much if not more money from making a fake version.
2.How can I cash in on this.
03:13 PM
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03:28 PM
Or do you think that skaters don't play videogames? Do people on the high-school football team never play Madden?
03:32 PM
03:32 PM
@Claudiolphigenia: I knew that, my mistake.
02:51 PM
Is it too soon to request a post-mortem? Probably more fun to read than the game is to play.
Can't help but wonder if this piece of hardware might actually "work" with better software, or if the sensors are to blame for the unresponsive controls.
02:56 PM
Ambitious? Yes. Good idea? No.
03:08 PM
It was probably pretty daunting to get the sensors and the software to fully agree yet allow for natural human movement.
Riding a real skateboard is something of feat of balance and trying to emulate that is bound to be rife with difficulty.
Ah well, live and learn I guess.
02:50 PM
Are there decent motion-controlled games? Of course. They should be in a separate genre, or perhaps a completely separate console. Yes it would be vastly expensive, but if people put down money to buy Motion Controlled Console, they would likely be interested in spending money on the games and peripherals required to play them.
I can't blame them for trying, and unfortunately it sounds like so much is wrong on this first try. I'm sure someone will eventually get it right, or at least market it correctly, much like the Wii.
02:47 PM
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02:44 PM
God this industry sucks sometimes.
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02:57 PM
I'm betting this fails. People will spend that much on Guitar Hero, because Guitar Hero is cool. But this is just positively lame, and there's been barely any press on it, so they basically fucked themselves. No worries, though.
03:10 PM
03:30 PM
My brother hangs out with the skater crowd, and they play a lot of video games, and when I asked them about Ride none of them knew what it was, except for one kid, who said he wasn't getting it.
I love the old Tony Hawk games, but I think having a motion device for it is just a horrible idea, and its made it too expensive. You think in this economic climate people are gonna drop $120 on a game for the holidays? For most kids, that's the choice between one "big" game or two "normal" games. For the same price that kid could get Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin's Creed 2, the two biggest sellers of this season so far.
I'm just saying, you really think this is gonna sell like hotcakes? Are YOU gonna buy?
03:41 PM
I believe game reviews really come into play when the consumer is buying the game for themselves. Because they want to know what they are getting is a solid game that wasn't a waste of their hard earned cash. IMO.
02:43 PM
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11/25/09
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11/25/09
#speakup
11/25/09
#ReasonsToIgnoreEverythingActiv...
Luckily when Robomodo was struggling to make a game ACTIVISION was out there promoting the cool looking(poorly functioning) board they had just announced for it.