Tony Hawk's Project 8

"Very Displeasing"

Introduction
The Tony Hawk series has been going on for a very long time now, making multiple appearances on many different consoles. For each new one that comes out, the developers at Neversoft add new features, more skaters, and much better graphics. Project 8 is the newest addition to the continuing series, and, unfortunately, it fails to live up to it's expectations and hype.

Story
This is probably the weirdest story ever in video game history. You play a skater in a small town, and you hear that Tony Hawk is coming to look for the best skaters to join his team. Wow. Very boring and predictable throughout the whole game. Your objective is to get yourself noticed by Tony to let you join his team. To do this, you must travel through the world (if you can even consider the "levels" in the game a world), doing insane objectives to get noticed.

Gameplay
I thought that I might as well get this section over with because I'm going to have a lot to say. To start off, the objectives you must do in order to complete the story mode are ridiculous and unnecessary. From helping a military general break into the capitol building to jumping over a 30-foot gate by using a skimpy little RC car, the stunts and challenges you will take on throughout your journey can sometimes seem almost impossible (anyone up for scoring a 500,000 point combo in under a minute?) The objectives have nothing to do with the story. The only main character in the game is you and Tony Hawk, and that's it. Not too fun. Also, every objective has three different levels (Amateur, Pro, and Sick) that you have to complete it on. This is very difficult to achieve, especially if you don't have a history of being good at skateboarding games.

Next, we have the newest feature in the Tony Hawk series. "Nail The Trick" is when the game goes into slow motion and the camera zooms in too your feet and board. When this happens, you then begin to use the two analog sticks to control your feet to flip the board in many different directions. This is actually pretty cool, and you can use it at any time when your board lifts off the ground. Although it isn't amazing, it's actually one of the reasons why I was provoked to get this game.

You probably have heard about the "Breaking Bones" feature. Yet another reason why I wanted to check this game out. Unfortunately, you'll have to turn to a next-gen console for this. You don't get it in this version, and the rag-doll feature has also been taken out! Now that stinks real bad doesn't it?

And last but not least, we have the character options. When you start the Story mode, you can only pick from three different people, a kid, a white person, and a black person. No females. All males. This was very disappointing. Also, you don't have to spend money to deck your guy out in clothes, but there isn't that much to choose from at all. And the characters are not very good looking. The white person's face is all shriveled up for some reason and it looks like he's constipated. I won't say anything about the black character because people might think that I'm a racist, which I am not. Anyway, this part of Project 8 is very bad.

Graphics
The graphics are basically the same as the rest of the PS2 games out there. The only difference is that the graphics are very good looking and are totally next-gen quality, but that's about it for the visuals.

Sound/Music
The sound is alright, I guess. My only complaint would be the music. Basically, it sucks. You probably haven't heard of any of the songs. They are almost all rap songs, and it can get pretty annoying at times during play. The overall sound of the game is pretty good, but your character doesn't say a single word in the game, which leaves the story sort of blank.

Conclusion
Overall, this is not a very good game. You can rent it, but that's all that I recommend. There aren't any bonuses to unlock, so you really don't have any reason to play this game over again. So in conclusion, Tony Hawk's Project 8 is very displeasing.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/07