Struggling to find an identity. Over the years we have watched Tony Hawk slowly decline […]

+ Unique concept; + Forgiving controls

Tedious missions; Bland presentation; Simplistic trick system

In Shaun White Skateboarding, you restore joy and freethinking to an oppressed and conformist world. One of the game's great ironies is that you do so by uncovering Stride Gum billboards in a city abounding with Wendy's fast-food restaurants.

The first half provides plenty of enjoyable skating; It's fun at first to watch the city come to life; A couple of great environments to skate in

The second half is mired in boring; tedious puzzle tasks; Hacking is flat-out dumb; Story and visuals never capitalize on the premise

When setting out to create their own skateboarding game, Ubisoft could have settled for yet another boring Skate or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater rip-off. But instead of doing that, they went a whole new direction, creating a game that is equal parts Footloose, George Orwell's 1984 and Lords of Dogtown.

Skateboarding games have seen their share of ups and downs over the years. Before EA's Skate came into the picture, Tony Hawk branded games had been a force in the video game industry starting in the late 1990's.

Shaun White Skateboarding shows a fair deal of promise when you start the game. There's an intriguing introduction to the dystopian world of New Harmony wherein players will soon be guiding their character through a moral uprising.

Most people don't realize that Shaun White is just as accomplished a skateboarder as a snowboarder. Sure, he's mostly a vert skater, but the man has won more competitions than full time skaters care to admit.

Shaun White has decided to drop his snowboard and pick up a skateboard, throwing his name into the fray and competing with genre stalwarts Tony Hawk and Skate . To its credit, Shaun White Skateboarding does offer a completely new way of interacting with your environment through skating, but this...

Shaun White Skateboarding pushes a novel world-shifting mechanic with some interesting branches, but it all grows stale in the company of questionable gameplay. The design is fundamentally lacking incentive and balance, as it's far too quick to punish players for every little mistake during...

Don't bother. There's really nothing enjoyable about this game, even the multiplayer which has promise you can't even enjoy because there is no one online to play with.

On paper, Shaun White Skateboarding seemed assured to fill the gap left by old-school Tony Hawk Pro Skater, but a lack of invention outside its transformation and shaping mechanic lets the side down.