When an idea fails the first time, most people do one of two things: they either change the formula drastically or ditch it entirely. There’s a reason why folks don’t just bury a broken concept beneath new layers of content. But that’s exactly what happened with Tony Hawk: Shred.

Developers Robomodo didn’t fix much of what was wrong with last year’s Tony Hawk: Ride — they just quietly tacked on an indistinguishable snowboarding section and a simpler layout catering to younger gamers. Controlling the game with the required, packed-in board peripheral still barely works — you usually end up executing undesired tricks and/or crashing — but that’s only when you manage to get your skater off the ground. The levels feel much too linear as well; a fact you only notice if you can deal with fighting the game’s extremely inaccurate steering. Shred is a hodgepodge of good-on-paper ideas intended for younger and casual gamers, but the poor execution ends up alienating all.

On Xbox 360

+ The board peripheral is still an interesting idea…

- …too bad it doesn’t work with any reliability.

- Really poor level design.

? Who decided it would be okay to try this again?

4.5