Family Trainer is part skateboard trainer

I saw and tried some of the games in Family Trainer: Athletic World, a hip to be fit mini-game compilation for the Wii coming out in Japan on May 29th. Trickboader wasn’t one of them.

Sure, the Wii has skateboarding games and it’s getting Skate from Electronic Arts. However, Trickboarder stands out by utilizing a Power Pad-like mat bundled with Family Trainer: Athletic World. Players jump in the air to make their character fly off a ramp. Once airborne you can tap one of the arrows to make the virtual skateboarder spin. If you want to do a grab you need to have your feet firmly on two of the arrows and tap another arrow with your hand. This sounds like a much needed creative take on skateboarding games, which feels like a stagnant genre dominated by Tony Hawk.

Images courtesy of Namco Bandai.