Another spinoff of a big 3rd party game comes to the Wii.

This is intriguing. I'll wait for impressions/reviews before I buy this, but it certainly has my attention at this point.

its an obvious announcement to accompany the balance board. I want something more original, but I'll check it out anyway.

 I'm fairly jaded against the Tony Hawk series at this point, but it seems ironic they're claiming to be reinventing the series starting on the DS near the same time we hear spin-off of Skate is coming to the Wii and the DS.

Skate, despite it's flaws, was very inventive and it was surprising to see something so creative on standard controllers. Also felt it was one of the few games that shoots for realistic graphics and sounds, but maintain a fun light hearted appeal between the hall of meat telling you how many bones you shattered, and your virtual cameraman breaking the fourth wall to make jokes as your expense.

Of course as an EA game it felt glitchy at times, lots of product placement, lousy load times, and challenges in the later parts of the game felt ruthless. I'm pretty interested to see how this turns out since the original skate was all about pioneering a new controls scheme to a genre dominated by the Tony Hawk series.

And when people realise it's more fun than the original (rather then flicking your thumb's around) they'll tell everyone to get the Wii version instead of the boring (flicking your thumb's around) versions.

You know the routine.

That's actually a pretty awesome announcement. If it were just that Skate was coming to the Wii (spin off or not), it would just be indicative of the Wii's marketshare. But the idea that the game is primarily focusing on the Balance board, an peripheral that will have a much smaller userbase than the Wii suggests something far better.

playing it without the balance board is like playing Guitar Hero without a guitar controller

 Yet the Tony Hawk series used to be so popular.

Either way, wonder if they'll put any more effort towards motion controls then those little balance board games you can plug directly into your TV where you do crap like snowboarding. 

This is the deal as far as I see it. Some of these games that utilize the balance board will be fantastic and some of them will be awful depending on how well they control. I am hoping that they will have these games set up in the stores to test out because I am going to be cautious. That said, Nintendo seems to always get their own motion controls right which means that I am drooling at the prospect of 1080 Snowboarding coming out for the Wii Balance Board. Man, would that be awesome!!!

I am happy that it is a spin off rather then a port with tacked on Balance Board control, at least this way it has a chance of been good.

I've never played skate so I don't really know what to expect, but I think they will put some effort into getting the controls right, if they don't, they risk losing the existing skateboard fanbase and any new gamers that came aboard with Wii Fit to Tony Hawks line of games, and thats a risk they will not take. They got in early with this, I hope they don't blow it.

Interest level 75% (wii fit owner)