You may remember back in May when Activision CEO Mike Griffith stated that the next Tony Hawk game would be a Nintendo DS exclusive and "utilizes new technology not yet seen on the DS." According to a press release sent yesterday by Activision, that game is Tony Hawk's Motion, which proudly announces it will use the Motion Pack for accelerometer-based game control. That's great and all, but why is this the first we've heard of the "Motion Pack"? The press release casually mentions it as if it were some peripheral we were all already familiar with. All we can gather about it from the press release is that it adds an accelerometer - the same kind of gyroscope that's in the Wii remote and iPhone - to the DS.
Obviously, the Motion Pack is the big selling feature, what with "Motion" right there in the game's title, but the package promises variety as well with an all new Todd Richards Pro Snowboarder mode and a whole 'nother game packed in as Hue Pixel Painter: an "action-oriented puzzler" "uncovering sources of paint below the ground’s surface" and "bringing color back to a dreary environment and defending against the Drabs who have set out to leave the world gray and bland." So it's de Blob?
The two games are set to come packed together this November for the MSRP of $39.99, a bit steeper than your average AAA DS title, but hey, it's two games and we can only assume the Motion Pack comes packed in as well. We can only assume, of course, because we haven't heard anything else about it yet.
The idea of motion-control on the DS has been widely discussed ever since the Wii first waggled onto the scene, so I'm not surprised to see someone doing something about it, but I can't help but wonder is this a worthwhile gimmick? The DS has seen plenty of innovation already. The variety of input methods and controls in games like The World Ends With You, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Electroplankton are astounding, far greater than many gamers believed possible on a handheld. Playing through each of those surprised me and made me begin to wonder what else was possible on the DS that I just hadn't seen yet. How well will the game play when you are constantly tilting the whole system, including the screens you're supposed to look at? Who knows? It's only slightly awkward with WarioWare Twisted, but I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
Other good news is that Tony Hawk Motion/Hue Pixel Painter is not being developed by Neversoft, the company responsible for the distillation and monotony of past Tony Hawk and Spider-Man games, as well as the recent Guitar Heroes, but rather by CREAT Studios, bringers of Insecticide for the DS and Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Pro-Am for the PS2... so yeah, there's that.
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