Yes, once again it’s that time of the year for Neversoft to bring us another installment of the perennial skateboarding game that seemed to start a millennium ago. Actually it did, back in 1999 to be exact, but I digress. Some folks would say the genre is getting a little stale, but Neversoft offers a few new additions to try to keep the gameplay fresh for those who can’t get enough of this genre.

The last version introduced us to the “nail the trick” system which makes its way back along with the new “nail the grab” and “nail the manual” modes. Most of us have played these games to death over the years, after all they are fun. But has the Tony Hawk series run its course with new games like EA’s skate entering the arena, with an all new trick system? Check out the full review, and hear what we have to say.

Gameplay

Proving Ground gives the skater this time around a choice of three skating disciplines to follow. You have the career path, where you go around shooting skating videos, hardcore, a take no prisoner style of skating where ever when ever no matter who gets pissed off, and rigger, where you modify pieces of the environment with a rudimentary level editor to make lines and reach hard to get to places. All of these disciplines have goals of course, and as you accomplish them you gain the respect of your peers and skill points you can used to improve your “nail the (trick, grab, manual)”, improve your rigging skills, agro kicks, etc.

As you progress in each of the disciplines your normal skills such as grinding, manualling, spin, wallriding, etc. all improve as you land the various styles of tricks as in previous iterations of the game. Old school tricks are performed as in the past with Y being the grind, X fliptrick, and B grab trick. A ollies. New in this version is the agro kick, which involves a rhythmic timing while pressing the right bumper button. This is tricky to master at first, but gets easier as you use skill points to level it up. When used correctly, you can gain an incredible amount of speed to lead into a kicker, halfpipe, bowl, etc.

Career and hardcore mode is pretty self explanatory, but rigger mode is something totally new. The game uses a simple level editor that allows you to place kickers, rails, etc. in spots to reach places and achieve goals. One of the items that can be placed in game is a camera for photo shoots. This part of the game leads to some of the most frustrating tricks I’ve ever seen in the TH series. The camera is placed pointing at a spot where you must do a certain trick. As you skate along and attempt to trick in this target zone, your skating speed goes into slo mo as in the nail a trick mode, which totally throws your timing off. Adding insult to injury, some goober developer had the brilliant idea of making you press in the right stick to take the photo, while doing the trick, all in the slo mo-thrown-off-time photo zone!

This is probably the most frustrating part of the game. I almost threw the controller at the plasma display. This mode also introduce the mod tool, which is a hammer that allows you to alter the in game environment somewhat in order to reach your goals. The rigging portion of the game is not my cup of tea, didn’t really care for it and have I have not been trying to complete all the goals in it.

Nail the grab and nail the manual are nice additions to the nail the trick system, but nail the grab works far better than the nail the manual mode. Nail the grab allows you to grab the board with your hands for tweaks while mid air, and perform finger flips. It works pretty decently, just like the nail the trick mode. Nail the manual on the other hand is very tricky, it lets you enter nail the trick mode by pulling in the right trigger and using both sticks to vary the amount of force your are using on your front and back foot, there by letting you manual. Sounds simple in theory, but try flip tricking into a nail the manual and flip trick out of it and you will understand what I’m saying.

All in all it still has some of the great things from the previous installments of Tony Hawk, some new ones I like (agro kick), and some that feel tacked on and incomplete.

Control

As stated previously, the core Tony Hawk controls are the same as previous versions of the game when it comes to grinding, flipping, grabbing and manualling. Nail the trick (which includes grab and manual modes) is done by pressing in both stick while in the air, which brings you into a Matrix like bullet time. You then used the sticks to control your feet to spin and flip the board. It’s really cool to watch, and very satisfying when you land one for big points, but all you can see is the board and your feet and you really have no idea what is coming up in your landing zone. If you’re in a bowl or half pipe this is no problem, but if you’re street riding who knows what you may land on.

Nail the grab and manual work much in the same way but you have to pull one of the triggers, (left of grab, right for manual) and then use the sticks to either use your hands for the grab or feet for the manual. It really is a great concept, but it seems a little immature in its current state in the game. Maybe the next version of the Birdman’s game will have it (pun intended) “nailed.”

Xbox Live

Proving Ground online consists of mainly scoring trick points against your opponents in either ranked or unranked matches. Ranked matches let you bet money you’ve earned in single player career against other online opponents. I really can’t tell you too much more than that, because when I logged in for a few matches no one, I really mean that, NO ONE was online playing it but me. I created a game and skated around for about 45 minutes, but nobody showed up.

Graphics

For a next gen game (or should I say current gen with all 3 consoles on the market now) the graphics are just a little disappointing. The environments don’t look too bad with a pretty decent draw distance, but the character models just look like ass. The environments tie together the cities of Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Philly all connected by bridges. They have a nice urban look to them all. I especially liked skating in D.C. at the Air and Space Museum, it’s cool to skate on top of the space shuttle and rockets on display.

Character models are down right scary though, with mouths that don’t sync (or sometimes move at all) with the speech. Clipping is very noticeable almost everywhere, usually with your skateboard passing right through objects and buildings. You are awarded some video clips when you complete certain tasks and this is the weird thing about the graphics. Some of the clips look really good, like they were filmed in high definition and others have so many jagged lines your eyes will bleed watching them.

Audio

Sound in Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground is pretty good, skating sounds are spot on, grinds sound good, and beefing it on the pavement isn’t bad at all. Of course everything is brought to you in life like 5.1 surround, so you won’t be missing any of the action. The soundtrack is kickin’ too, with brand new singles from the Foo Fighters (The Pretender) and the Smashing Pumpkins (Tarantula). The soundtrack also includes great bands like Nirvana, The Beastie Boys, Bloc Party and The Reverend Horton Heat.

Replay Value

There’s replay value o’ plenty, that’s for sure in this game. Trying to max out all your stats, complete all of the challenges, score all the achievement points and playing online is sure to keep you busy for a long time to come.

Bottom Line

Overall Score: 7.4/10.0

Additional Comments

The Hawk series is starting to show its age. We’ve been playing the same games for years now because the only competition to this was Disney skating, and I don’t think too many hardcore skaters or skater enthusiasts were into that kind of thing. With EA’s freshman entry to the skating genre, Skate, Neversoft is going to have to up the ante and really come out with some new features to compete with what I consider a superior skating experience.

Links

• Activision

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