Remember the first time you played Guitar Hero? The tiny plastic guitar. The physical awkwardness. The fear of looking like an idiot. But before long, all that gave way to the euphoria, the fun, even reveling in looking like an idiot. Activision hopes you’re ready to look like an idiot again. Take that Guitar Hero guitar, replace it with a plastic skateboard, and get ready to Ride.

Insert Coin?

Tony Hawk’s skateboarding series took a much-needed year off in 2008, capping a nine-year run with Neversoft’s Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground. Now the franchise looks reinvigorated, with a new developer and crucially, a new peripheral — a wireless, sensor-laden skateboard deck that tracks your every tilt, sway, and swerve. Taking the Tony Hawk series into the physical realm makes so much sense, you can’t help but wonder why it hasn’t been done before. Then it hits you — it has. “At his studio, Tony has big-ass arcade machines like Air Trix and Top Skater,” says Josh Tsui, president of Chicago-based developer Robomodo. “For quite some time, Tony has wanted to make a game where somebody can feel like they’re doing real skating.”

Real skating, of course, requires skill, but Tony Hawk: Ride unabashedly wants to lure those mass-market gamers who went gaga over Rock Band in Best Buy and bought the overtly physical Wii Fit as fast as Nintendo could make it. And just like you didn’t need to know yoga or drums to figure out those games, all you really need to play Ride is to have watched someone skate. Put the plastic, curved skate deck on the ground — no wheels, no trucks, just a curved bottom and a whole lot of wireless technology inside. Stand on it, and mimic what you’ve seen on ESPN and Mountain Dew commercials. To start things rolling, push off with one leg just like you would on a real board — a sensor reads your leg as it flies past. Lean left and right to steer left and right; lean on your back foot to manual, or stomp to pop an Ollie; lean back and pivot on the carpet to pull 180s. (Yes, you can spin 360 to do a 360 if you want.) More intense flicks of the board with your feet trigger different tricks, like kickflips and shuvits. The infrared sensors embedded in the sides of the board — one in each compass direction — weren’t functional in the prototype we tried, but you’ll hold out your hand over them to trigger grab tricks. That’s it — you’ve got nothing to hold onto but your pride. The rest is up to your sense of balance and developing muscle memory to pull off specific tricks.

And if you can’t develop that sense of balance…you can’t play. There are no traditional gamepad controls for Ride, because the game and the board controller have been developed in tandem; one would not exist without the other. Tsui offers an apt analogy: “I would love to play a first-person shooter on the Xbox 360 with a keyboard and mouse — but you know what, Microsoft is not going to let me. But luckily, a lot of the games are tuned to be played [with the gamepad]. So that’s the same way we’re approaching our controller: it’s a 1:1 relationship. Anything else is a compromise.” Think back to the Top Skater example: would you bring a gamepad into an arcade and expect it to control a coin-op machine? Would you even want it to? It’s a canny design choice that makes a clear break between the franchise’s past and present.

The board controller itself is a nifty marvel of engineering, and for our very first feet-on test, it...well, we’re not going to blame the board. We won’t pretend we looked graceful or felt anything but awkward in our first 10 minutes of play — leaning dramatically to either side, shuffling across the carpet as we shifted position, sometimes even falling off the inch-high platform altogether — but we definitely felt the spark. It reminded us of the first time we played Guitar Hero — we sucked, but with time, practice, and friends, we eventually became proficient and found it very rewarding. When we watched the early build of Ride played by someone with more skill, it was a beautiful thing to see; one experienced skater in the room lined up combos and manuals after just a few minutes of getting oriented with the plastic board. So there’s hope for the rest of us.

It's A Small World

The board may be the obvious hook, but it’s just a toy without a game to support it. But since the new controller is inextricably linked, the gameplay focuses on the physical act of skating rather than following a cinematic plot. “There is a storyline to link all the locations, but it’s a physical game, you’re standing on the board…do you really want to go through an epic storyline?” asks Tsui. “I’m not going to stand here waiting for something to end.” Some levels are linear, point-A-to-point-B environments, such as the skate nautical-but-nice run through Central Park in NYC or down the Los Angeles river; en route, you’ll find shortcuts and alcoves worth milking for extra points. Other levels are built more like session spots, like Chicago’s Loop Plaza: work the skatepark-style course through speed runs, trick goals, and challenges. There’s also a dedicated halfpipe mode in the game just for vert tricks — obviously a priority to an aerial-trick pioneer like Tony. As you land tricks, you’ll build up a Style meter, which in turn lets you trigger Signature Moments — flashy, personalized tricks for big points.

If that all sounds a bit like the old Pro Skater days of constrained levels full of high-score goals and hidden tapes, it’s not accidental — but it’s not a save-as trick, either. “Our approach is kind of like fashion,” explains Tsui. “Right now, ’80s retro is kind of coming back, but there’s still a modern spin on it. I personally like a lot of the early Tony Hawk games, but I know if we ported that over and slapped a board on it, that wouldn’t cut it. So it’s a deconstructing. We looked at what was fun, and if those elements worked for the board, we kept them in there. And then we started adding gameplay.”

Interestingly, the game’s three difficulty levels govern navigation, not tricks. In Casual mode, it’s Ride on rails: you lean to steer a bit and trigger tricks, but you’re strongly guided so newbies won’t be overwhelmed. “In Confident mode,” says Tsui, “if you’re going toward a trick opportunity, the game will kind of lead you to it. If you’re drifting toward a wall, it will auto-correct a little bit. It’s almost like you have curb feelers out there, so you’re not constantly hitting things.” But Hardcore is what you’d expect: “The gloves are off and you’re on your own.”

One thing you won’t see much of: The Man. Whereas previous skate games have played heavily on pop-shoving it in the face of authority, Ride is more about, well, enjoying the ride. “In our opinion, that whole thing has been a bit played out — it’s almost stereotypical,” Tsui asserts. “We’re not going to have security guards chasing you down. Obviously, we’re not going for Sesame Street, but Ride is strictly about skating. It’s a pretty skate-friendly world we’re envisioning here.”

C'mon, Get Happy

Friendly is a good word for it, because there’s a very positive spirit surrounding Tony Hawk: Ride. Robomodo is utterly psyched to re-establish the franchise with a true innovation; Activision is no doubt thrilled to have one of its most successful brands back on retail shelves, and in a novel, family-friendly format. Armed with a prototype, Tony Hawk himself reportedly called his friends to “come over and see the future of gaming.” Sure, he might be a little biased, but Tony’s gaming credentials have never been in question, and he notoriously sweats the quality of his branded products. If the reinvented Tony Hawk: Ride makes him happy, we’re willing to get on board, too.