'Tony Hawk: RIDE': Grind in your own house

After all, the mission of the game developer at 20 N. Clark St. for the last two years has been to create the new video game "Tony Hawk: RIDE," which drops Tuesday for all major home-console systems.

This isn't just any "Tony Hawk" game, mind you. The entire series is getting a reboot that promises to do for skating what "Guitar Hero" did for rock music. "RIDE" features a new control scheme no longer based on complex button combinations, but on a regular-sized skateboard controller designed to simulate ollies (a leap in which the skateboard stays in contact with the feet), kickflips and a grab-bag full of other tricks.

The idea came from the pro skating phenomenon himself.

"I brought it up a couple of years ago because I felt like we'd gone as far as we could with the past games," Hawk told RedEye via telephone from Southern California. "I really felt like it was time to do something for a home system with a skateboard peripheral."

But the challenge of remaking the extreme sports video game fell into the lap of Robomodo, a company that rose from the ashes of EA Chicago, a game development studio that closed in November 2007.

"We were suddenly out of jobs but we didn't want to be flung across the globe," Michicich said. "When you build a team over so many years, the kind of synergy and team dynamic doesn't come overnight."

As a result, 23 ex-EA Chicago employees formed Robomodo. It was just weeks later that "Tony Hawk" game publisher Activision called on them, in January 2008, to rejuvenate the franchise.

Because most staff members had worked exclusively on fighting games in the past--the "Fight Night" boxing series, "Def Jam: Icon" and others--Robomodo had to immerse itself fully in the world of skating.

Staffers went to local skate parks, watched skate videos and chatted up Stevie Dread Snyder, a pro skater from Uprise Skate Shop in Wicker Park. Some even took up skating for the first time since childhood.

"A lot of people bought skateboards and some of us would go skate like the Lower Wacker area on lunch breaks," lead designer Patrick Dwyer said. "We had an interoffice contest to see who would be the first person to ollie. It was stuff that got you more into the culture and got you really excited about skateboarding."

This company-wide dive into local skating eventually influenced the game itself--giving it more of a Chicago flavor than the Southern California feel of previous Tony Hawk titles.
Robomodo programmers even designed two Chicago-specific levels--Lower Wacker and Loop Plaza--based on skating at Chase Plaza, 10 S. La Salle St.

"There's definitely a lot of Chicago vibe," Michicich said. "The Chicago-based levels even tend to play local bands like Chevelle and The Fold on the soundtrack."

The biggest challenge for the Robomodo team was designing a skateboard controller that would be safe, fun and responsive to player commands.


The company's shelves are littered with the remains of nearly a dozen different variations of the board. Early prototypes featured things like track balls, arcade buttons and wooden rails.

"This one has a Wiimote, the insides of an Xbox 360 controller and a Sixaxis controller from a Playstation 3 all Frankensteined together," Dwyer said while holding a skateboard-shaped plank littered with random wires and duct tape. "We joked that it's the United Nations of video games controllers."

To help test out the prototypes, Robomodo consulted local skaters such as Snyder, skateboarding physics expert Tae Kim, and, most importantly, Hawk.

"He'd test a lot of the prototypes [and he] looked through thousands of different kinds of animations just to make sure that they were right," Michicich said. "Sometimes he'd fly into Chicago to check things out."

Eventually, the Robomodo crew settled on a durable plastic controller that players stand on like a skateboard. The hands-free and wireless controller contains two accelerometers--the same kind of motion sensors found in Wiimotes and iPhones--that respond to movement, and light sensors on the sides.

Dwyer claims the resulting game makes players feel awesome.

"You pull off a trick or grind and do something that you couldn't necessarily do in real life, but here you are physically doing it on our game," he said. "It's a huge rush of adrenaline."


HAWK AND ROLL

Tony Hawk already had a lot on his resume--nine-time gold medal winning skateboarder at the X Games, actor, skate-park designer, clothing mogul and father of four. Now, Hawk can claim one more title: "World's Coolest Video Game Tester." Last week Hawk talked to RedEye about working on "Tony Hawk: RIDE" with local game developer Robomodo.

The guys at Robomodo said you were competitive when testing the game.
[Laughs.] Yeah, it's been fun in that respect; it's so new. None of us have a perfect technique to play it.

Can you pull off every trick in the game so far?
Oh yeah, for sure.

How similar is "RIDE" to skating in real life?
We had to figure out how to mimic certain moves where you have to maneuver a skateboard intricately, where you flip the board. Basically, you have to mimic those moves but don't have to do the physical act of those moves ... I think we did a good job; a lot of people get on it and can instantly figure it out.

How do you think the skating world will feel about it?
I think they'll like it ... To be honest, I think that it is a very different way of skating because the moves are more subtle, which makes them more accessible to the general public. So when professional skaters get on it, they start slapping it around and doing tricks like they were actually skating, and that's a little too much for it.

A couple of the levels in the game are modeled after real locations in Chicago. Do you have any thoughts about Chicago and if its a good place to skate?
I've always loved Chicago ... They've embraced skating there, especially the townships around Chicago. There are a lot of skate parks in those areas.

If you could skate on any Chicago landmark or street, which would it be?
In the game, Lower Wacker is fun. Somehow if we created Lower Wacker like it is in the game, that would be a blast. Otherwise I'd like to jump across or go on the bean at Millennium Park. I took my kids there; they thought it was the coolest thing ever.


REVIEW

'Tony Hawk: RIDE'
Wii/XB360/SPS3; $119.99 on amazon.com

Considering the closest I've ever been to skateboarding was wearing a pair of funky Airwalks in sixth grade, one of the hardest parts of this new skateboarding game for me was knowing where to stand on the plastic skateboard-controller. The rest was easy and exhilarating. There are no buttons or awkward hand-held controllers, it's just you balancing on the board, twisting and lifting yourself to perform tricks. Robomodo's done a great job making the game newbie-friendly, perhaps too much so. I probably shouldn't have been able to pull off a pro skater's dream trick--a 900 degree spin--by accident. Nonetheless, "RIDE" is enough fun to make you dump your other fake plastic gaming accessories in the closet for a long while. RYAN SMITH FOR REDEYE