I am an old school Tony Hawk fan.  Activision could release Project 8 every year with different achievements and levels and I would probably buy it every year and log at least 70 hours. 

I remember playing the first Tony Hawk Pro Skater on the original Playstation in my dorm in college.  I couldn’t put down the controller then, and I still can’t now.  Back then Tony Hawk did not have the arcade feel that it has today.  You couldn’t manual, revert, wallride, or footplant.  You had ‘lines’ and that was it.  There was no way to pull a combo off across the whole stage.  You were doing good to get a nice 200k combo over the halfpipe in the Warehouse.

Over the years the TH series has ‘improved’ itself by adding these different features that allowed the player to stretch their combos to the max.  Finally, the news has finally broken that there is nowhere else the series can go.  Neversoft has given up.

This is no doubt due to a new competitor in the skateboarding genre, Skate.  This franchise, developed and published by EA, promises a ‘realistic’ skating experience.  The game is ok.  But, I can’t get into it.

I feel like skate will follow closely in Tony Hawk’s shoes.  EA has already produced a sequel to Skate a little over a year after release.  Sequels, as we all know, have to add features to make them buzzworthy.  The second iteration of Skate added walking, and skitching.  In my opinion, the game also got a little campier.  After a few more iterations, the game is surely to become Tony Hawkish.

The most annoying thing about Skate is the fanbase.  These emo losers scour the internet jumping on anything Tony Hawk and say how it sucks and Skate is so much better.  Just take a look at one of my Tony Hawk videos on youtube.

Maybe I am getting old and crabby, but this really gets on my nerves.  I feel like my father defending the Beatles against Rage Against the Machine.  “Back in my day, we didn’t have fancy analog sticks and voice actors.”

I have still not figured out why people think flicking analog sticks is so much more realistic than pushing a button.  Some people, it seems, think skate will actually make you a better skater.  It doesn’t, no more than Guitar Hero helps you on guitar.  I admit the physics are more realistic, but, is that a good thing in this genre?

Here’s hoping someone picks up the Tony Hawk franchise and does something with it.  Until then, I guess I will be playing American Wasteland, Project 8, or Proving Grounds.

Been a while since my last post.  Between 3 blogs, an open source MVC framework, 2 kids and a wife, it is hard to find the time.  We bought a vsmile for Cameron for christmas and he plays with it and enjoys it.  Recently while playing Mario Kart Wii I decided to let him have a go.  He did ok.  Ok meaning it captured his attention for about 20 minutes and he was actually using the wheel like he was supposed to (kinda).