Tony Hawk's Project 8

"Tony Hawk isn't the same without Neversoft"

The Game

The Tony Hawk franchise changed the way society looks at skateboarders. It opened the eyes of the public to show that skateboarding is a fun way to make friends and keep in shape. After the 8th installment of the series though, I feel Activision has grown weary and out of ideas. We could foresee this with the last two games, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 with it's goofy Jackass antics and with Tony Hawk's American Wasteland which tried the GTA approach with a sort of futuristic 1980's vibe. Neversoft didn't have a lot to do with the making of this game; this game was instead made by Shaba games, maker of Grind Session, Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 on the original Playstation. None of these games were spectacular action sports games as the classic Neversoft ones.

Gameplay- 6/10

The gameplay falls short of what Activision promised; in terms of realism. Many of us were looking forward to a realistic Tony Hawk game. This ultimately fails. The game still feels as arcade-like as ever and the new Nail The Trick looks impressive, but it is more of the ridiculous combos that we had in focus mode. It wasn't really a necessity as we already had focus and it didn't allow us to string tricks as the revert, and manual did. This is fine if you liked the crazy challenges we had before, but if you were looking for a realistic skateboarding game, you better look again. The game also froze on me more than once. There were also loads of bugs (being stuck skating with a head and part of a torso). This was horrible. Hardly any games that I've played have had character model problems. Pressing the x or button to manual was a bad idea. The game feels a lot like the Amped games on the Xbox with various sponsor and photo shoot challenges. It also has a similar system of rankings, and your rank increases as you complete challenges, earning sponsors and entry to contests. The levels feel very similar to those in Aggressive Inline. Many of the bugs are very annoying and almost usually warrant a restart of the console. Many features were also taken out that I enjoyed in the previous games such as online play, tagging, vehicles, the bmx and various 2-player games.

Creation Modes 4/10

I also was very disappointed with create a skater. It is very limited and stereotypical. The vast majority of skateboarders don't fall into the category of punk, urban or kid. I couldn't make a skater that looked even close to me (which was always fun, pretending to ride like a pro). Making goofy skaters was fun too, which we really couldn't do. This was another bad idea. There was no Create a Park Mode, which really hurt this game's Replay Value. They also got rid of custom tags and picking the sticker you slap.

Story- 7/10

The story is new to the series, but not very in depth. The story is about Tony Hawk and his crew in search of the 8 best amateur skateboarders. You start off ranking somewhere in the hundreds and work your way up. The story wasn't anything special, which was fine. The game should be about skateboarding, which it stays true to. It would be nice if the story was a bit longer, which could be said for the previous Tony Hawk games.

Graphics and Sound 6/10

The graphics and sound are what we have come to expect. Not a whole lot of visual improvements here and the frame rate was acceptable A lot of the levels feel hazy and I was disappointed that it was broken up instead of one massive level. I feel the soundtrack has gotten worse. There are a few major bands featured, but no real popular songs. There is a wide of music genres, but nothing I really felt like listening to. Fortunately, for Xbox owners, the custom soundtracks are still available. I was pretty glad to see emo bands like FallOutBoy gone.

<>Play Time/Replay Value- 4/10

This game has a lot less replay value than the previous games in the Tony Hawk franchise. Create a park is gone which was what I would spend hours on end with. I used to create replicas of popular real-life skate spots. I am sad to see this feature removed from the game. Some of the levels are kind of awkward and don't really offer major lines
or combos. You can beat the story mode with a rental and I don't see a whole lot to do after that. There is no online, only free skate, career, and 2 player.

Final Recommendation- Rent

I was a huge fan of the Tony Hawk games, but not so much this one. American Wasteland wasn't great and I think this game is a step backward. My question is Why? There were things that were sacrificed from this game that should have been there. Xbox owners lost many features that were there 3 games ago! I know disk space wasn't the answer, neither was processing power. Even the videos are shorter in this game. I can't exactly justify going out and spending $50 on this. When it drops to $20, maybe I could. There isn't enough replay value or a killer story mode, so a rental would be fine. This is a great game for a rainy day or a long weekend. There is pretty much nothing to do after beating the story mode. If you were a fan of THUG2 and THAW, you will probably like this. However if you were a huge fan of THPS2, THPS4 or THUG, this may not be the skating game you hoped for. Many of the bugs are very annoying and almost usually warrant a restart of the console.

Summary

+ Nail the Trick
+ cool new levels
+ Feels like Amped on a skateboard
+ Some new pros to play as

- Missing many of the favorite pros
- Short story mode
- Bad create a skater
- No park editor
- Many features from previous games gone (bmx, tagging)
- Loads of bad glitches

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/14/06