The controller isn't broken, it just takes practice. With practice and good calibration it actually works pretty well!
It didn't start out that way. When I first got on the board, it was a mess. I was all over the place, unable to properly turn or pull off the tricks i was trying to do. It felt "broken". I calmed down and thought, "how is this actually working?" Ok there's a little green skate board icon on the screen, what's that all about? That shows you if your covering a sensor on accident and purpose. My front foot kept covering it. so that's why my skater was pushing when I wasn't, note to self, move your damn foot forward. Better, but I was sweating bullets and trying to control this crazy skater on my tv, and believe me it took patience and practice, kinda like learning to play the drums on Rock Band. I didn't just jump into that on expert. I started it on easy and was pretty bad, but with practice I can now play on hard drums...nearly.
Try an ollie, right pretty easy, but one particular style of trick Flick Tricks (Varials etc.) seemed Impossible. I tried for, well, waaay too long. That one turned out to be from bad calibration. I re-calibrated the board with the lights low and the furniture moved about 4 feet away from the board, turned off cell phones and bam! I'm pulling off varial flick tricks as easily as tilt tricks (Kickflips etc.) Finally thank goodness. This was on day 4, I'd just put those tricks on hold and tried to enjoy the game.
Now with everything calibrated smoothly and many hours of practice. I'm actually playing this game properly and having a blast! The gamespot reviewer who gave it a 3.5 is obviously way too out of shape (This is an active game) or didn't take the time to properly calibrate and or learn how to use this board. It's got a steep learning curve, not everyone will enjoy, but if you give it time and like skating, it's definitely worth it!
The Look- The graphics are nice, nothing stellar, but they get the job done well. Clipping glitches tended to show up a lot at first, but I'm pretty certain it was because I was skating like an idiot, all over the place crashing into things. Now that I'm better they don't show up anywhere near as often, almost never.
The Parks/Streets- Are smaller, but very well designed and have plenty of rails and ramps to create fun lines. I do wish they were larger though. But I'm only in the second City so we'll see.
Game Modes are divided into Speed, Trick, Challenge and Free Skate. With Contests and Vert Skating too. So there is plenty to do. You won't be scouring levels to find hidden tapes or spell S K A T E this time around (thankfully) It's all about pulling off killer lines for High Scores (in Trick Mode) and skating as fast as possible whilst collecting time decreasing icons (in Speed mode). Challenge mode is incredibly rewarding and i didn't think it would be at first. Pulling off a set of 3-6 or so tricks in a line is awesome on this deck!
The Extra goodies you unlock, clothes, decks, trucks, wheels keep your skater looking fresh if your into that, plenty of shoes from the likes of Vans etc.
The Music is good as usual, some of my favorites, Darker my Love, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beck etc.
But this game is all about the new controller and It takes Time and Patience to get used to, but once you do you'll realize it's not broken, you are, at first. :P Does it work perfectly? Probably not It's only been a week for me, but it gets easier and more fun everyday. I'm pulling off inverts, fingerflip manuels, judo airs, impossibles, boardslides, etc. fun stuff!
Tony Hawk helped create the next step in skateboarding video games and I think he deserves more credit and effort than lazy reviewers/bandwagon bashers are giving him. It's stripped down and maybe a bit unpolished, but it's NEW and hopefully only the beginning of things to come.
Hawk's competitor, The 'Skate' game franchise (1,2 and 3 coming soon) is great for many different reasons, but if you wanna stop skating with your thumbs and start skating with your body, give Tony's new innovation a try, it's pretty cheap on ebay and amazon now.
Just make sure you've got plenty of Water, Patience, Calibrate properly, and get ready to sweat a bit you can't play this from your couch!