The controller is a plank that curves up at both ends, like a DA haircut, to make it easier to tip one direction or the other. It's like a skateboard with no wheels, made out of the sturdy plastic they use to make to non-styrofoam coolers. There are four light sensors you can see—two on the tips, and two in the center on opposing sides of the board, forming a cross—not to mention the accelerometers you can't. It's how the board detects when you do a hand grab. Along the edge are Xbox control buttons. It's a of couple pounds, not very heavy. I never felt like I going to break it, but I'm also not very heavy, about 150 pounds.

"You ever skateboarded or snowboarded?" Cody, who was running the demo, asked me. I've snowboarded. I was afraid to step on it immediately, since I figured it'd control the menu like a Guitar Hero controller. It doesn't (hence the buttons on the bottom). So I planted my feet perpendicular to the board, and almost immediately nearly fell off as it pivoted because I leaned too far forward. Leaning is how you turn. Since my balance sucks, it made playing hard.

I got back on and managed not to fall off this time. We did a trainer course, so I kicked once along the side of the board to simulate thrusting myself forward, and my onscreen counterpart zipped forward along a rail. To jump, you have to pop the board up quickly on one end by leaning back. It really does have to be a snapping motion. "Like a Wiimote," Cody offered. Turning is a matter of leaning left or right, and that was natural and easy. To do a hand grab, you have to trigger one of the sensors on the end. You don't have to go all the way down and literally touch board—in fact my knee triggered it more than once on the half-pipe section.

The carpet onstage, which wasn't luxuriously thick by any means, made keeping the board totally flat difficult, so if you have some seriously plush carpet, using Tony Hawk Ride's board is going to be frustrating, I suspect. And you're not gonna wanna play it on hardwood either, since slamming the board back on end to jump is going scuff it up like a warm of dogs on steroids ran through your living room.

I have to wonder, however, if the game's difficulty was a result of my personal athletic deficiencies or the game's—it's supposed to be designed for people who've never skateboarded. I wasn't the only one having problems playing, by far. But maybe it just has a steep learning curve—you're doing a lot more than waving a wand or clicking a button while holding another one, after all. I definitely want to play in a group for at least a couple of hours to really lay a solid judgment on this thing, more than my own skills.

Do we want tens of plastic guitars, skateboards, drums, balance boards and light guns cluttering up our living room space? No, of course not. But ponder these simple questions.

1) Would you rather be pushing buttons in time to music with your Xbox 360 controller, or strumming along with your fake guitar and hitting a drum pad?
2) Would you rather be pushing buttons to make your character do a 720, or actually tilt your body on a skateboard?
3) Would you rather be pushing buttons and tilting a stick to shoot something on the screen, or point a gun at the screen and physically shoot the screen?

It's simple; most everyone would rather be simulating the act because it gets them closer to the experience of actually playing the game and mimicking what the character is doing on screen. And that's just the way we're headed. The first controllers had a joystick and one button, and technology's progressed along until we're actually getting 1:1 motion detection.

But where is this all going? The endpoint, in our minds, is something like the Holodeck from Star Trek. A room that, although finite in reality, has the mechanical and optical abilities to simulate just about anything you can program. But we're a long way from that. What we can do is take steps toward that goal, by simulating the experience with plastic instruments. But there are many steps between here and there, and hopefully the next one won't cause us to fall down because there's a plastic guitar in the way.

Look, I'm sure that Tony Hawk Ride is a great game and is only made better by a skateboard-shaped control deck. But at some point, people are going to look at their closets stuffed with multiple sets of instruments and boards and plastic crap to attack to their Wiimotes and say that enough is enough. And this one is worse, as it's designed for one game. At least the Wii Fit can be used with multiple games. This thing is shaped like a skateboard! There are only so many uses for a controller like that.

Not to mention the fact that having the buttons on the side of the board seems like it'd make for some pretty awkward controls, but I'll reserve judgement on that front until this thing gets officially unveiled at E3. [Joystiq via Electronista]

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