My only complaint about this review, is that every issue he calls out (and even the ones the people in this thread have been pointing out) are all solved by simply pausing the game and looking at the pages of information on everything from terminology to exact steps to pull off every move in the game.
Tony Hawk is like an arcade game compared to the Skate series. I'm not even a fan of skateboarding but both Skate games have been tremendous fun to me. Most user friendly skating games ever made in fact. Also oneof the best sandbox types of games. the perfect thing to just kill a few hours on after work.
The controls are perfect too. Almost every major move starts with a flick of the analog stick, then a number of variables can be pulled off by pressing the shoulder buttons to grab and the face buttons to do things like kicks and such.