Tony Hawk's Proving Ground

"Another year, another Tony Hawk"

Tony Hawk: Proving Ground is yet another sequel in the long running series. It's been obvious for a few years now that neversoft has run out of ideas and for the first time ever the series has competition with EA's Skate. Does this Tony Hawk redeem itself or does it make Skate this year's best skateboarding game?

You're a new up and coming skater and it's all about you rising up and becoming a true skating legend. What I do like is that it's up to you what kind of skating star you want to be but ultimately you'll do all three routes.

Graphically the game is a bit boring. When I first started I was surprised by the fact that there was no one walking around but once you advance past the first few missions the city becomes populated. Everything looks good. Not amazing but good enough. Character models are nicely done. My biggest problem is that they have connected three cities together and they look nothing like the real places. I've never seen Philly look so clean....

The sound in the game is alright. I didn't enjoy the soundtrack. None of the songs really stuck out for me but I am happy to report that they slimmed down the selection of the rap music.

Real skaters also lend their voice talents to the game which is a great and all if I knew who half of them were. Also your own created character has its own voice actor. I'll touch base with that a little later but I'm not sure if I like that idea...

Control in the game is fairly simple. I do prefer this over Skate's control but in the end I think Skate felt like I was actually learning to skate. You have a button to push yourself. You grind with the Y button. You can pull off tricks using the shoulder buttons. It's all fairly simple. Returning from the last game is the slow mo feature which you activate by clicking in both analog sticks. Nice idea but it's awkward to click both in. There is also the photo shoot controls which become even more awkward as you try to frame a trick through a lens while doing the trick and sometimes activating the slow mo. It just gets overwhelming at times.

If you've played the past 3 or so Tony hawk games then you know what to expect. It's exactly the same thing. Go around, talk to people and then do stuff for them. Be it pulling off a move while going across a gap or grind to impress someone. The goals are the same ole thing and to be honest I'm tired of it all.

One thing that usually kept me entertained was the create a player but it's so limited this time that it just shouldn't have be included. I couldn't get a skin tone besides Asian and African American. No clue why and when I got a some what white complexion it looked more like a stone than flesh.

It is nice that the created character is used in cut scenes and stuff but I wouldn't care as long as I was able to actually make a good character and you can't.

The game does have some wicked goals and the more you skate, flip, grind and whatever else you will level those stat's up. The game does offer on-line play but I couldn't get it to connect so I gave up. The achievements are absurdly hard and while it's great to have a lot of stuff that is based on the harder goals, it doesn't represent what a game does in the game so it eventually gets tiresome when you're playing so much and the game just isn't giving you anything. I realize there was a time of no achievements but I believe achievements should be used as single player advances and then harder goals. A decent mix would work better than what we have here.

It's another year and another Tony hawk game. It's old and boring. Neversoft needs to skip a year or two and rethink the series because right now I don't think it's possible for it to become any staler.

Story - 3/10
Graphics - 7/10
Sound - 7/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 5/10
Replay Value - 5/10

Final Score - 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/29/07

Game Release: Tony Hawk's Proving Ground (US, 10/15/07)