There had been rumors a year or so back that the next Tony Hawk game was being developed with a prosthetic skateboard device a la Guitar Hero, but it’s finally been confirmed. The game trailer is up on the official site – THRide.com, after the game’s official name, Tony Hawk Ride. There aren’t any details on pricing, or anything else, really. Game Trailers TV has has the, uh, game trailer and a super short interview with Tony and the new developer, but the trouble is it’s split into two chapters with some unrelated stuff in between. Chapter one is where you watch Tony sidestep the popularity of the competitor “Skate.” Chapter three is where you watch the developer sidestep the popularity of Skate. Whatever, unless they kooked the game play completely, this thing has the makings of being a huge, huge hit. The board senses motion, whether or not you have a hand over it, etc… It’s free standing and not connected to anything. Pop a wheelie or a 180 and it’s reflected on screen. I’m just wondering what the aftermarket options will be for peripheral add-ons, like, say, trucks and wheels? Oh wait… The game comes out June 2,…

OK, definitely lamer than the title these guys came up with. Illusion Labs, The company that developed the Touch Grind game for the iPhone has demoed their touch screen games on one of those massive table top touch screens, and it looks pretty damn fun. The tiny size of the iPhone screen is the main criticism of this game, but hte table top display brings it to a whole new level, provided you can shell out 10k for the display. The game would also work on a laptop or notepad computer with a multitouch display. Watch the video after the jump.

Speaking of pixelated, it’s been a year and a half since we tackled bad skateboarding video games from the 8 bit days. It was called  “Seven days of bad skateboarding video games” but apparently I abandoned the concept after only three ( 1 – 2 – 3) days. Metro Cross has the honor of winning the worst video game box cover in a PC World article. – Thanks to Bobcat for the tip.

The Escapist Magazine presents this No Punctuation productions review of EA’s Skate 2, and it’s pretty funny, from just about any point of view. Check it out after the jump. Make sure you close the annoying advert or it will prove to be very distracting. – Thanks to Colin for the tip.

Today in old iPhone news we have two separate iPone apps that are skateboard related. The first is GoLearn Skateboarding from Santa Cruz. According to Mobile Marketer; “With GoLearn Skateboarding, consumers can learn different tricks, discover new skate parks and play music from their mobile device.” OK, I’m pretty sure the device the device already plays music, but that’s OK. Trick tips… meh. Skatepark finder? Well that seems useful, especially consideringthe fact that it’s GPS enabled. Sweet suite. A little bit os confusion here, the “Santa Cruz” mentioned in the article is Santa Cruz Skate shop an not NHS. and in further WTF, for some reason they have what looks like ultimate fighting graphics on the web site. Awesome! The second iPhone app is a skateboarding game being developed with Vans and Fuel industries. Kind of funny, considering the old concept game with fake Vans branding that was floating around the web a year ago. They are running a name the game contest. Odds are that Finger Fracture won’t be a chosen as the winner. Game play looks pretty fun with the touch screen accelerometer combo. Somebody needs to send us an iPhone so we can, uh, review the game.…

Somebody hacked a Wii controller and grafted it on a skateboarder so they could use the skateboard as a controller for skateboard games, in this case, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. I’m assuming the process was more involved than just, you know, duct taping it to the bottom of the skateboard. There’s a really dull video of the controller in action. The best part is that the guy has a conference room full of people and a video projector for the demonstration, and he makes them all sit there while he makes his character look like himself. The thing to do would be to make it so you have to skateboard to play Madden’s NFL Football (or whatever the heck the franchise is called, I obviously don’t have a console.) call me slow on the uptake, but I didn’t get the punch line in the Engadget post title until just now. “Wiimote and skateboard hacked into a controller, Gator not impressed.” Ouch! – Thanks to Seth Levy for the tip.

Want to take your fingerboarding sessions to the next level? (Did I actually just type that?) There’s an IPhone app called Touch Grind that is basically a slightly different interpretation than the original concept-only Vans Finger Fracture. One big difference, Touch Grind is something you can actually purchase and play. And, it’s supposed to be pretty good. I’m one of those poor peasants who can’t afford an iPhone, so I don’t know how this game plays. It looks fun, but it also looks like it needs to be played with some extra screen real estate, say on a 17″ monitor. Yes, I know this game is not news anymore. I’m only mentioning it because I never got around to it originally, and if I don’t write about it on Skate and Annoy, it doesn’t exist. Errr… Yeah right. Concrete Wave had some sort of marketing partnership for inline advertising with the Swedish developers of Touch Grind, but the partnership went sour, just in time for a new ad that Concrete Wave took out in Transworld, of all places. I guess if I wanted to help them out I should have posted this earlier. What else? How about video captures of…

Ars Technica reports that the developer of the THPS series of video games has decided to bail on the franchise, even though it was the their main source of bread and butter for a long time. Strange, considering Tony seemed so stoked on the next version. Must have been sales talk. I wonder how he’s taking the breakup. Is thi s the beginning of the end? Will he be back to parking lot demos in spandex at Six Flags? I doubt it. Does anyone remember the old Thrasher video game Skate and Destroy? It was pretty fun, but apparently never really took off. – Thanks to Steve B for the tip.

There are two things wrong with the Skateboard Park Tycoon game title. First, it should be “Skatepark Tycoon” or “Skate Park Tycoon.” Second, nobody really makes money running a skateboard park. Skateboard Park Tycoon combines a sims type atmosphere with all the fun of building your own pretend skatepark and and sitting there watching pretend people skate it. It was so good, they made three of them.

Sure, it’s got nice packaging, fancy electronics and a marketing campaign to back it up, but I bet this Math Mission game for the Leaptster Learning Game System isn’t nearly half as gnar as Radical Mathematical.