I downloaded the Skate (spelled "skate." with a period and lack of capitalization) demo on the Xbox Live Marketplace. It's the best skateboarding game evar. Why? The controls.

So many Nintendo fanboys think that you can only innovate by making brand new controllers like the Wiimote. While the Wiimote does give a new way to play games, so do new games.

The Xbox 360 controller...the standard game pad. Two analog sticks and some face-buttons and triggers. Boring in comparison to the Wiimote, right? Well, it depends on a how a developer utilizes these controls. Skate innovates with an old controller.

Look at the Tony Hawk games. You press a button to do an ollie, and press some other buttons to do some tricks or grind a rail. Skate is totally different. You use the analog stick to pull of an ollie by pushing the stick down, then flicking it up, essentially controlling the feet of the skater. You control your body with the left analog stick, and when you feet are off the board, you control the board with the right stick.

In Tony Hawk, you press the A button to ollie, then the X button to grind a rail. When you press the X button, your board autmomatically positions itself and it magnetically attaches to the rail, allowing you to grind. It's not like that in Skate. To grin a rail in Skate, you have to ollie with the analog stick, then manually position the board so that it can grind the rail. Accuracy and perfect timing is needed to successfully pull of moves. While it may be more complicated, it ends up being more rewarding.

This is next gen to me. Next gen is controlling parts of you character, rather controlling your character as a hole. In Skate, you control your body, feet, and board separately. It makes you feel more in control of your character. This is also the kinda control I want on the Wii. This is why people want 1:1 sword movements on the Wii. They want to REALLY control the character. In Metroid Prime 3, you will actually be controlling Samus arm and gun, separate from controlling her movement and face. Most FPS games already control movement and aim separately, but the gun is usually in a static position on the screen, so you don't really control the gun. You do in Metroid Prime 3. That's awesome. That's next gen...and so is motion blur. Next gen = controlling individual parts of a character and motion blur. :D