Kotaku 
Enter your username and password.
Denver, 11:57 PM
Wed Dec 9
58 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip us:
Editor-In-Chief:
Brian Crecente
| AIM | Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Stephen Totilo
| AIM | Twitter
Senior Editor:
Michael McWhertor
| AIM | Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor, Japan:
Brian Ashcraft
| AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, East Coast:
Michael Fahey
| AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Oceania:
Luke Plunkett
| AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editor, Weekends:
Owen Good
| AIM | Twitter
Correspondent, San Francisco:
AJ Glasser
| AIM | Twitter
Columnist:
Leigh Alexander
Columnist:
Tim Rogers
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
12/07/09
I'm not gonna force myself to play something that isn't giving me pleasure. It's like eating shit and someone saying, well keep eating the shit. It'll get better. No it won't.
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
Mr. Hawk, you're better off just shutting up about the game. I don't think anyone "exactly imagined" your skater clipping through solid concrete, but I don't think that's quite a valid defense of the game.
12/07/09
His comments are in defense of the concept, which still sounds f'ing sweet on paper. Just ends up being crap when you turn it into a $120 piece of plastic with choppy game mechanics. For the kind of price, Activision should have put more talented people on the project, or just let a company like Harmonix develop it first.
Yes, this was a product miss. But it was Activision's fail, not Hawk's. "
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/08/09
The concept is a peripheral that mimics skateboarding realistically enough to give experienced people a challenge, and simple enough that beginners can pick it up and have fun.
That concept still sounds great.
Of course, it may be impossible to give people an accurate skateboarding experience, since, in reality, skateboarding tricks are f'ing hard unless you're practicing all the time. Taking the game the other way and making it super accessible (like they tried to do) makes the game, as you called it, anti-immersive, and very unlike skateboarding.
12/07/09
I'm just curious to see if this is a case where a game works very well for a niche market of people (i.e. people who actually skate a lot in real life) and sucks for everyone else or if it just genuinely sucks.
12/07/09
Sorry Birdman, you just can't release game with such a steep difficulty curve in this day and age.
If the game feels shitty and unresponsive to the average Joe, you've failed at making a good game. Plain and simple.
...And that's without even considering the presentation issues that plague this game - sub-par graphics, bad menu systems, vague tutorials, the constant spam of advertising... All adding to an already shitty experience.
"if it didn't play exactly how they imagined it... then they passed it off"
I have issue with this quote. It's called "not living up to expectations", Tony. Don't try to deflect the blame onto the consumers and reviewers. If anyone's at fault it's you, Robomodo, and Activision.
You've got to wonder how the hell a game like this can go through a development cycle as long as it had without someone playing it during production and saying "You know, this game is nowhere near as good as the old games". I know I would have, I'm almost positive someone must have told them.
Did Hawk and Robomodo just stick their fingers in their ears and start shouting "LALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING LALALALA" or something?
12/07/09
Umm, Demon's Souls would like to have a word with you. ;-)
Actually, you can release a game with a steep difficulty curve in this day and age, but it needs to be a good game if you hope to sell enough copies to break even on the development and marketing costs.
12/07/09
Maybe I should have said "Sorry Birdman, you just can't release game with such a steep difficulty curve in this day and age and expect it to sell."
Because Demon's Souls... Hardly an incredible seller outside of Japan regardless of it's critical reception.
As much as at pains me to say it as I love a good game that stretches my gaming skills, we're living in the era of casual gaming; if it isn't easy to pick up and play, it's a niche title at best.
I think Activision thought they could get away with selling crap, and looking back at the growth of the casual market, there was a time when, yes... You could get away with making a shit game and still getting sales, but I think it's got to the point where even casual gamers are beginning to know what a good and bad game are.
Or, at least I hope we are.
12/07/09
[www.escapistmagazine.com]
12/07/09
Seriously, you can't compare the sales of a niche title like Demon's Souls - and that's what it is, the type of game to appear favourably in a chart for few weeks, before everyone who wants it gets it - to what Activision expect from a Tony Hawk game, you just can't.
I think we've all read enough about Bobby Kotick to know that he isn't interested in really good single-platform games that only sell to a relatively small audience. He wants things that sell BIG. Not just big for what type of game it is, but big no matter what.
12/07/09
DS sold way better than TH:Ride. So there goes the theory that difficult games don't sell. I actually think that DS's difficulty was its biggest selling point. Lots of people are sick of extremely easy games and want a challenge again.
12/07/09
i went to target this weekend for holiday shopping, and dj hero was SOLD OUT. THR? there was a leaning tower of those things. and, not to mention i played the demo at ebgames for about 30 mins. most awkward experience in gaming this side of virtual boy. glad i spent my money on dj hero, that game at least is enjoyable.
sorry tony,
its not that people don't wanna give it a chance, its just that reviewers refuse to drink the kool-aid that is the tony Hawk franchise.
12/07/09
Meanwhile the other reviews all played it more thoroughly...meaning they gave it more of a chance than the one guy who liked it.
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
I imagine that your genuine instinct would be to stand up for it, regardless of whether it carried your name on the box or not. I do feel a little sorry for Tony Hawk. His original games were amazing; but these days it seems to me as though the Skate games are more his style than his own games are.
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
I mean, Ironic, not funny, taking pleasure in other's pain is bad...
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
*guffaw*
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
YYYEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
....oh wait, wrong topic.
12/07/09