Tony Hawk: RIDE

Tony Hawk: RIDE was an attempt at a fundamental transformation of the series - instead of button-based controls, the player stands on a large plastic board shaped like a skateboard, which uses built-in sensors to detect tilting, turning, and jumping and translates them into the movement of the virtual rider. The classic button combinations for tricks disappeared entirely, and the game instead tries to recognize the player's actual body movement, making it feel more like a motion-based experience close to the dance or fitness titles of the era than a traditional arcade game with a stick and trigger.

The Xbox 360 version (technically identical to the PlayStation 3 edition) was developed by Robomodo and is the one with full online multiplayer support, letting players ride and race against others over the network via Xbox Live. The control board for this version was designed as a lighter, more agile peripheral, more sensitive to fast movements than the Wii variant, which also affected how precisely the game recognized individual tricks and how smoothly it reacted to quick weight shifts during jumps and turns.

The game also tried to replace the decades-old trick system of the series, based on button combinations, and players had to learn the new controls essentially from scratch - none of their existing control knowledge from previous Tony Hawk games carried over directly. That is precisely why the Xbox 360 version, with its online multiplayer, represented the most ambitious form of this experiment the series chose to offer at the time. It's no coincidence that this version got the most attention in reviews - it was the flagship of the entire physical-board concept and the benchmark against which the other platforms, including Wii, were subsequently measured.

Why play it: RIDE mainly makes sense as a historical curiosity - a record of the 2009 attempt to replace the gamepad with a physical skateboard - and the Xbox 360 version is additionally the only one where you can also play it online with other players over the network, something the Wii edition lacks.