So how is EA's Skate franchise evolving in the face of Activision's new peripheral-based entry in the Tony Hawk franchise? This time around it's all about the community and teamwork, with an all-new co-op mode that allows teammates to complete challenges together, advancing each other's careers in the process. Senior producer Jason DeLong explains the importance of the social side of Skate 3.

"The social and community aspects of the SKATE franchise are something we've always embraced, but we've never done anything to the scale you're going to see in SKATE 3. We're giving gamers a very unique experience by providing them with the tools they need to build their ultimate team or to create a team comprised entirely of their online friends. From there, it's all about proving yourself – teaming up, and throwing down."

Along with the emphasis on working together, Skate 3 also features an expanded Hall of Meat, a brand new skate.School to help players learn the ropes, and enhancements to the user-created content with the skate.Create feature suite, which allows players to create their own graphics, videos, and skate parks.

Skate 3 is currently in development for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 at EA's Black Box studio, with a target release date (in the UK at least) of May 2010. Check out the teaser trailer below to witness people skating, which I suppose is all you can really ask for.

Not being known to be exceptionally skilled at video games, I play them anyway. But having limited athletic skill and no ability to roller-skate, I've never tried to skateboard more than a foot.

Who better to try out the new Tony Hawk game played with a skateboard peripheral last night at an Activision event in Manhattan?

Eagerly in the evening yesterday, I stood on a prototype Tony Hawk Ride skateboard, one that runs on 2 AA batteries and has had its 300-pound weight limit tested successfully by a guy at E3 who one of the game reps on hand guessed, must have weight 350. Two of me would have barely busted the limit.

I tried the same stuff Crecente tried during his E3 Tony Hawk Ride preview and had a similar reaction. Jumps — ollies — were easy to learn and execute with an abrupt back-foot tilt of the board and then a quick leveling off. That smacks the board's underside back onto the ground, under your weight, so plan to have mercy on the people downstairs by playing this on a carpet. Like Crecente, I had more trouble executing mid-air tricks, which are activated by moves of your feet, bends of your ankles or hand-gestures (grabs, if you want) toward sensors on the board. At its most basic, one can twist that board for tricks. I just wiggled my ankles in what must amount to button-mashing in Ride. Tricks happened. Well, the first time I tried, tricks didn't happen. I lost my balance and had to step off.

Josh Tsui, president of Ride's development studio, Robomodo, told me that he plays on a hard surface without any trouble. The board holds up. The floor holds up. He pulled off lots of tricks, but he made me feel like I was standing too close. Not his fault. This game requires the personal space of a Wii Tennis match. Tsui told me that was one reason Robomodo scrapped a prototyped two-board multiplayer mode: Too many cases of bodies in near collision. Multiplayer in Ride is done hotseat style, up to six gamers getting summoned for their try on the board.

One note about the game's difficulty. When I played the skate-park level available at yesterday's demo, I first played it on "casual." This kept my rider funneled down a linear path. I controlled his momentum, minimal steering and tricks, but I could not freely roam the level. I could, at at least one fork, chose from a trio of options about where I wanted to go next in the skate park. When the difficulty was raised to "confident," I could free-roam the level.

Tony Hawk Ride is slated for release this fall on the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii. And the final board will run on 4 AA batteries. I stood on it. It's a better, firmer build.

Brian does a fine job of detailing Skate 2's new online features despite being obviously uncomfortable in his role of straight man to Cuz, who comes off as so annoying that he's almost enough to make me not want to buy the game. The ability to create your own spaces and share them online with other users is definitely nifty, as is the mini-game that rewards the most hideous falls - the only one I can ever see myself winning. I just wish I hadn't spent the entire video muttering "shut up, shut up, shut up" under my breath while rocking back and forth in my chair like a patient in a psychiatric ward.

Tony's interview with CNET echoes his interview with the LA Times from earlier this week on many levels, discussing his charity while hinting at some sort of accelerometer function in the next game, but when it gets down to hyping the next title, Hawk dials things up a notch.

I can guarantee you that it's as close to real skating as you'll ever come.

Well there you have it folks. You will never, ever come as close to skateboarding as you will in the next Tony Hawk game. This is the end all, be all of skateboarding games, as foretold by prophecy. We'll just bookmark this post for when the Tony Hawk game after the next one comes out.

Tony Hawk talks charity, game development [CNET News]

This year’s PlayStation AM JAM winners included:

Skateboarding (14 years and up): Timmy Knuth of Melbourne, Florida;

Skateboarding (13 years and under): Ryan Thompson of Katy, Texas ;

Skateboarding Vert: Ben Hatchell from Manassas, Virginia;

BMX: Trey Jones from Apopka, Florida.

The PlayStation AM JAM finals winners received $5,000, a scholarship to Camp Woodward and/or Woodward West facilities for the entire 2009 season, a PLAYSTATION®3 system, and a PlayStation® prize pack (worth an approximate value of $5,600). Past winners of the PlayStation AM JAM have continued on to become professional athletes in their respective sports, including Mike Spinner, Dave Bachinsky and Evan Smith.

Anyone want to guess what $5,600 worth of Playstation stuff could be? Go here to see more pictures and movies from this event.

Skateboarding legend Alan "Ollie" Gelfand, inventor of the Ollie, is suing Sega and Activision for using his nickname without his permission.

Ollie is seeking $20 million. I don't know why he isn't suing over the Tony Hawk game, that's got to be a worth a lot more than Ollie King or Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure money.

Ollie Sues Game Companies [Playbomb]