Tony Hawk's Motion, a new Hawk game including Activision's own motion pack add-on, has shipped, and while IGN knew from the start that this wasn't a token Hawk offering in the vein of Vicarious Vision's long-running pocket series started on GBA, and then moved later to DS, IGN had no idea it was going to be quite as bad as it turned out being. Out to capture the Wii "motion" audience on DS? Check. Out to cash in on a popular franchise? Check. Avoid at all costs? Double check.
G4TV's Sterling McGarvery Writes:
I still remember the Sunday afternoon in October 1999 when I caught a subway to a Blockbuster Video to rent Tony Hawk's Pro Skater based on a neighbor's recommendation. Little did I realize that it would spark a love affair that would start before the Birdman Bandwagon fired up and would last well beyond the point at which "Downhill Jam" wasn't just a spin-off, it was a pithy descriptor of the series.
The Pixel Painter add–on certainly makes a break from the daily grind of the featureless, drab world of this poor imitation of a Tony Hawk title. But equally doesn't save this game from the overflowing bin called 'opportunity missed'.
The tilt controls are used to turn your board left and right. They don't work too badly, and you can adjust the sensitivity, but it all feels a bit superfluous and gimmicky rather than an integral part of the game. And with the shoulder buttons used to accelerate and jump, and trickery performed with the face buttons and then some special moves mapped to the touch screen, everything's cluttered. The game also looks dreadful.
