The super happy, love-filled world of Disney is accurately portrayed here in Disney's Skate. Many of the newer Disney mascots are available from the character selection, and many of them are keyed to their own levels. For instance, Woody and Buzz skate around in a room full of toys while Simba concentrates his efforts out in the jungle. Whether you're grinding roots or grinding plastic racetracks, the mechanics are all the same.

The Tony Hawk 4 engine is inside here somewhere fully intact. Everything from reverts to nose manuals can be pulled off with these new skaters. It all came back to me pretty quick, just like riding a bike. A new method of control has been added for the little ones, or any new comer to the genre for that matter. This simplifies the actions needed for tricks and grinds making them much easier to do, but it doesn't allow for the flexibility and combo making of the original setup.

Goals and objectives will feel equally familiar. You start off each level in a free skate. From here you find and talk to a number of characters who will ask you perform tasks ranging from getting high scores to gathering objects and, of course, picking up S-K-A-T-E. Achieving a number of goals allows you to advance to new stages. There's even the obligatory high number of "gaps" to find in each level, with each being tracked on a stat sheet.

The graphics are great, no doubt about it. The Disney characters are as impressive here as they were in Kingdom Hearts. They all animate fluidly as well, it's just really strange to look at. All the boards are weird representations of skateboards like a piece of wood or a hoverboard, and the tricks can be quite odd. Just look at the Timon and Pumbaa screenshot to the right for example.

The music is Disney through and through. Each selection fits the theme for the stage perfectly. Sound effects are good as well. They've been changed a little bit from the metal on concrete sounds from Tony Hawk and replaced by more appropriate sounds like smacking wood together. And like any good developer, they've given you a choice to play your own ripped music on the XBox version.

These games are always tough to put a score on as it's not going to appeal to a wide audience. Personally, I don't have any place for a game like this on my shelf when I already have the whole Tony Hawk dynasty. Would I recommend it to my friends that have kids? Surely. It an extremely well put together game, it's just not for me. Therefore it gets a slightly above average score, and you'll have to use the text above with your better judgment to make the final decision.