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Thursday, November 24, 2011

Retro Hunt: Front Porch of the South

A few weeks ago, LordRyuujin and I went to a fairly new flea market called Front Porch of the South. Upon seeing the name you would think it would be just a bunch of southern antiques (farm tractors, beer bottles, a pitchfork) and you'd be wrongly discriminating us. Its a typical consign flea market with private booths open to the public. Not a bad place. Here's the results....


Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A Second Look @ Tony Hawk RIDE

I have had this game for less than a week, and I've already broken the skateboard controller.


This game is an absolute waste of time, money, and effort.
When you create a peripheral, its supposed to work. Plain and simple. But when that peripheral can't recognize one motion from another, then you have wasted everything. If there ever was a failed experiment in new ways to play video games, its the skateboard controller. I think we can all blame this for being the tipping point in the "too many add-ons" argument for video games these days.

To be bluntly honest: it doesn't work. During my less than 20 minutes playing around with the game, I didn't make it through the training before breaking the board. I was able to do more just by turning the board in my hands than by standing on it and attempting what it was trying to train me to do. The motion sensors in the skateboard are either too sensitive or do not respond at all. Attempting to do an ollie will be split between accomplishing the jump, entering a manual, doing a flip trick, or nothing at all. While it is a sturdy piece of plastic, its too small for anyone over 5 ft tall and you'll find yourself sliding over a carpeted surface.

The game itself is just bland with the environments being unnoticeable. They're frustrating to navigate since there is no way to slow your character down aside from running into a wall. The graphics look as though they came from the previous generation and there's just a general sentiment of grabbing thin air in a desperate attempt to keep the dying early 00's skateboarding craze going.

I'm not pissed that the game doesn't work, I'm pissed that I'll never have that $15 again because I can't return a broken product. $15 of my own money wasted. I thought "well, it was cheap enough, I'll buy it again one day." Then I came to my senses. Never again.

Never again, Tony Hawk.

If you're looking to collect peripherals, sure. Go for it and buy it. Its cheap enough now.
But if you were expecting a good game and were waiting for it to be cheap: now's the time to use that money to buy Elder Scrolls Oblivion, DiRT, Forza 3, Halo Reach,  Mass Effect 2, or any other game for that matter.

There are far better games that you can spend your money on. In fact, you could even buy a REAL skateboard and learn to ride that. It would be a better experience than attempting to play this game.

Keep Playing Anything But This.