While the full review will have to wait until after I get my hands on the retail copy, I played a good deal of Tony Hawk: Ride at the recent New York City event celebrating its launch.

In my three hours of playtime with Ride, one thing became abundantly clear: this controller works very well. The new skateboard peripheral is a bit daunting at first, but once you get used to it, it is extremely empowering. There's definitely a learning curve for the game, but you'll have many tastes of success as you learn the ins and outs of the peripheral.

The lowest difficulty in the game is Casual, which puts the player on a charted course with a few branching paths. This works wonders to introduce players foreign to skateboarding or the new controller as it allows players to focus exclusively on the tricks. Flip tricks are easy to pull off, as you just need to pop an ollie by leaning back or forward on the controller sharply, and then either tilt the board forward or backward, or flick it to the left or right. There are all sorts of ways to modify these moves as well, as you can cover the back motion sensor to alter your flips.

The motion sensors are an integral part of the grab tricks. There are four of them, one on the center or each side of the board, and you have to hold your hand in front of one or more of them while in the air to do grabs. Like I did at E3 2009, I had some issues with this. However, I discovered that I could just as easily put my foot in front of the sensor to do the pesky side grabs.

That sense of personal style is one of the main things that stood out the most about Tony Hawk: Ride. One of the developers from Robomodo said he rides the peripheral like a surfboard, and I often found myself switching up the positioning of my feet and the board trying to find that perfect setup, which I think I got close to finding by the end of my time with the game.

Grinds and manuals, a large part of past Tony Hawk games, are back in full force here. Grinds are easy to perform, as you just need to jump up to a rail and then stay balanced. It didn't seem to be too difficult to remain steady, as I was able to move the board around and switch between different grind positions with no issues. Manuals are bit tough to keep steady, as you have to keep the board angled up in the air. They are integral to learn, though, as you can keep up combos and score multipliers with them.

As I grew a bit more comfortable with the game, I tried out the Confidence difficulty level, which puts you in the control of the board. I managed to work my way through a few levels, but I was reminded of my early failings with Wii Fit's Skiing game as I struggled to perform tricks and stay balanced. It felt very good to have full control over the board, but it definitely takes a little getting used to. There is also a Hardcore difficulty setting that is for experts.

There are four different types of events that I tried out in the game. The Speed Slalom was basically a time trial as you tried to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and Tricks is kind of self-explanatory as you tried to get as many points as you can before time runs out. There's also a Challenge mode that gives you a specific line of tricks to perform. Finally, there is the Vert mode that I'm not too fond of.

The Vert mode forces you to make the controller parallel to the television, which was reportedly done at Tony Hawk's request. As you roll in a half pipe, you perform as many tricks as you can, ranging from big air grabs to handplants. It's probably the best they could've done with the half pipe idea in this type of game, but it just felt a little stale to me.

Additionally, there is a Party mode that can be enjoyed hot seat-style with up to eight people. Players can go through every single level and event in the game in this setup, which is quite fun.

The Mii mode, while separate from the main game, also features the ability to play any level in the game. Unfortunately, I didn't get to check out the Career mode.

Tony Hawk: Ride is out now, and Nintendo World Report will have a review of the game as soon as we get a copy.