Game #1226: AirBlade

 I believe I can fly.

 During the PS2 era, if you wanted to compete against Tony Hawk in the Skating department you had to do something to stand out. So, with AirBlade, they gave players a hoverboard.

 Something I found very amusing, is that since you're floating over the street, you can't bail your tricks, so you can just spam flips. The only way to bail a combo is by touching a wall as you perform a flip or a grab. Don't get too excited about flying, though, as you are basically hovering at street level at all times, the AirBlade, your board, only comes into play thanks to its boosting abilities. Basically, you perform tricks in order to build your boost gauge, and then you can use R2 to boost or hold down X to perform a high jump, both actions consuming energy from the gauge. Eventually, you'll have to decide whether the right way to approach an objective is to boost or to high jump. It gets kinda annoying. 

 Controls are pretty similar to Tony Hawk, but worse. Turning is very sensitive and wonky, I suggest using the directional pad as the analog stick is simply too sensitive. You jump with X, but you can't charge it, which really threw me off. Grabs is done with Circle, Flips with Square and grinding with Triangle, just like in Tony Hawk. That said, circle also works to grab poles, in order to vault, which is necessary in a few stages. While it copies the control layout from the best, sadly, movement doesn't feel very good overall. It's even hard to aim your jumps sometimes.

 The game has a decent amount of modes: Free Running, Multiplayer, Score-based, Story Mode and, if you manage to finish the Story Mode, an unlockable Stunt Mode that plays like Classic Tony Hawk, meaning, multiple objectives under a time limit.

 Story Mode is the game's meat and potatoes, and it's kinda annoying at first, but I learned to like it, as it's very arcadey. Basically, the game never lets up. You start a level under a 5 minute limit, and you are told to do something. As soon as you do it, the next objective pops up. One after another, until, finally, you perform one final stunt and finish the stage. Fulfilling objectives adds 15 seconds to the timer.

 The worst part about the whole ordeal, is that you receive very little guidance beyond an arrow that directs you towards your objective. Sometimes, most of the time, how you need to get somewhere isn't very obvious, which is annoying. It was probably done on purpose, as the game is only five stages short. And if the time runs out... it's back to the very first objective. I can understand how it could annoy some people, but I found it very Arcade-like, and thus, I eventually started enjoying it, at least once I finally understood how to do everything the game tasked me with, at least until...

 ...I got to the last level. It has bottomless pits that end your run. I gave up here. Look, the Arcadey nature of the game helped me tolerate its control issues, but this was simply too much.

 AirBlade is serviceable, but only just barely. Honestly, if the movement was a bit tighter and more precise, the game could've been more enjoyable. I think the idea behind the game was pretty solid, I enjoyed the objective-to-objective gameplay, but the game needed more work where it really mattered.

5.0