Gallery: Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground (360/PS3/DS)
After years of success on every major (and a few minor) home and portable gaming systems, there’s still no stopping Activision’s Tony Hawk franchise. The newest installment, Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, looks to show off a wealth of changes and innovations that reinvent the long-running series, opening it up even more to new players while giving veterans the best game yet. At a recent Activision event, I got to see some of the Xbox 360 version in action in the hands of Activision’s Kehau Rodenhurst and came away surprised at the level of depth the game will offer. The team at Neversoft is tweaking the luscious game engine from last year’s Tony Hawk’s Project 8 adding improved lighting, more customization options and eight all new gameplay additions that allow anyone to jump in and play regardless of experience level.
As usual, some of the sport’s top skaters are aboard for the ride, with Tony Hawk, Ryan Sheckler, Arto Saari, Jereme Rogers, Daewon Song, Jeff King and others featured in this installment. Meeting up with these board gurus lets you learn new skills and become better at the game as you tackle assorted goals. As important as these paid pros are, the real emphasis is on whatever avatar you’ll cook up with the deep Create-a-Skater feature, one aspect of the series that has grown better with time. I really got the feeling that Proving Ground is the game Neversoft set out to do from the beginning and now that next-gen is here to stay, they’ve begun mastering the hardware and maximizing the gaming experience.
The all-new storyline lets you develop your custom skater down one of three paths, Career, Hardcore or Rigger, using elements of each path as you see fit. Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. are your playgrounds this time out and each location looks spectacular while being massively skate-friendly. While it’s possible to stick to one path and complete a good chunk of the game, learning Hardcore skills lets you deal with the aggro anti-skate gangs that you’ll come across. These punks can slap you off your board mid-trick if the catch you off guard, but learning Skate-Checking puts them in place (and a smile on your face when they go down hard). Career lets you hang with some of the sport’s top skaters, competing in special events and shooting for a cover slot on Skate Mag.
Rigger is probably the most awesome path in my opinion, as it allows you to pick and place a set number of skate-worthy objects at any time during play, opening up levels or allowing you to reach out of the way areas or hidden bonuses. Additionally, players can turn any area into a customized skate park within seconds thanks to the simple to use Rig-a-Kit feature. You’ll also come across challenges that can only be accomplished by placing rails, ramps and other pieces carefully and newbies who can’t quite pull off every trick right away will groove on rigging up easier ways to grab goals. Then again, Neversoft has refined the excellent Nail-the-Trick system introduced in Project 8 to include Nail-the-Grab and Nail-the Manual moves, allowing for even more custom tricks and experimentation.
In an amusing touch, there’s a sweet bunch of arcade-style mini-games featuring tricky two-minute challenges. You simply skate up to machines scattered around the cities, plunk in a credit and zip around collecting colored orbs to upgrade your skills. It’s sort of a Pac-Man meets 720 homage that’s wicked fun to play and it’s entirely possible to get lost in these little diversions for quite a while. Back in the main game, if you’re wanting some competition in the mood for some company, you can invite a few friends over for multiplayer action or take your skater online and show off your custom Skate Lounge. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock or can buy tons of items to add to a massive customizable space where you can show off your skills and swag simultaneously. A seamless multiplayer mode allows players to hop from single player to online challenges with all their earned moves intact, invite other to their Skate Lounges and more.
Two other super additions are the Photo and Video Editor, both of which are easy to use and allow for online sharing in a few places. Rodenhurst shows off how easy both features were to operate, placing still cameras along one route before skating away and pulling off some awesome tricks as the cameras snapped away. After she showed off the results of her work, she showed off a fantastic skate video recorded earlier that looked amazingly lifelike with plenty of cuts, assorted filter work and even a bit of slow motion for good measure. Players will be able to upload their videos to the game’s official web site, so expect a slew of creative videos showing off everything from top tricks to massive bails. My own videos will run most likely toward the latter, given my experience with previous Hawk games. I love them to death, but I’m no skate champ when it comes to some of the gnarlier tricks. Still, it’ll be wicked to whip out some custom tricks and surprise myself by actually completing a stage or three without bailing badly.
All these improvements come at a key time in the franchise’s history, making this probably the most important game since the first entry on the PSOne. Given that EA’s upcoming Skate also features top skaters, character editing, innovative controls and a video creation feature, I’d imagine competition will be quite fierce between the two titles. One thing’s absolutely clear, however: Activision and Nevesoft are dead set on letting gamers carve out their own niche in the Tony Hawk’s universe and that’s something to be commended. PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii and DS owners are also getting Proving Ground this year, with Page 44 handling the home versions while Vicarious Visions tackles the portable version. It’ll be interesting to see how these stack up in comparison in terms of new features, but it’s probably safe to say that owners of these systems will be pleased by the direction this series has taken.
- Greg Wilcox
