Skate It - Hands on with Wii and DS

Grinding is where the Wiimote control works best. Once airborne, your board mirrors the position of the Wiimote, making it a simple but satisfying task to shape up that perfect grind. It's great to see the Wii version providing the same sort of joy in small triumphs that we loved in the original Skate - our hosts were particularly impressed with our seriously tweaked nose and tail slides, which came naturally once we'd got used to the flow of our approach toward a line of benches.

Getting your skater lined up and navigating the environments is certainly the hardest part. While rolling, twisting the controller leans on your board to steer, just like in real life. Pushing, thankfully, is triggered by a button press - the last thing we need is more motion control.

It's tricky to get the hang of how much twist you need to make a turn, though. Like Mario Kart, the biggest problem is how well the sensitivity works - you expect to have to make big, heavy gestures, which result in jerky and inaccurate movement. When, in actual fact, moving the controller just slightly is a far more effective at guiding your boardaround the level.

Mastering vert skating will be the biggest challenge, we reckon, since this is where all the elements of the game come together at high speed. It all works great, though. So great, in fact, that the DS version was a bit of a disappointment once we got started with the stylus.