The knock against the Tony Hawk series is that it's just the same thing year after year. But while there's some truth to that, Neversoft should be commended for the amount of new ideas and gameplay tweaks that actually find their way into each new iteration of the game. Yes the basic gameplay has stayed largely the same since the original game back in 1998, but there's enough new in each game to give it its own identity and keep you coming back for more twelve months later. Unfortunately Tony Hawk's Proving Ground suffers from an almost unthinkable problem, there's just a little too much going on in this game.
Tony Hawk's Proving Ground is Activision's ninth installment in the long-running series, and in a lot of ways it feels just like the arcade skateboarding game you've grown up loving. Despite having the added pressure of competing against Skate, Electronic Arts' new skateboarding simulator, Proving Ground is just more of the same Tony Hawk goodness with a bunch of new modes, moves and characters added in for good measure.
If you've played a Tony Hawk game before then you already know that this is a series about over-the-top tricks and larger than life characters. Like most of the games in the series, Proving Ground allows you to create your own character and take them on a journey from rags to riches. You start out just learning how to pull off basic tricks, but by the end of the game you're performing moves with some of the best skateboarders in the world, earning money, and showing the East Coast why you're the greatest skater that ever was. Regardless of whether you are into the story or not, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground is really just a game about a boy and his skateboard pulling of amazing tricks that nobody in the real world would think about attempting (not even the Hawk man himself).
Much like last year's edition, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground takes place in one large streaming world that is then separated by smaller chunks. This time around we move from the upbeat landscapes of the West Coast to the dark and gritty urban streets of the East Coast. In Tony Hawk's Proving Ground Neversoft has attempted to recreate three familiar East Coast cities - Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Baltimore. In this fictional Tony Hawk world these three cities are located so close together that it takes no more than a couple minutes to trick off of each famous city. As usual you will find familiar city landmarks and a vibe that is somewhat similar to that of the actual location, but needless to say these are not street-for-street recreations of these large cities.
What sets this year's Tony Hawk game apart from the rest of the crowd are the three different "lifestyle" paths you get to take on during the course of the game. The lifestyles are split up by color; you have the green Career goals, the orange Hardcore goals and the purple Rigger goals. How it works is you find an icon or person that is pulsating either green, orange or purple and you select them for a mission. The mission structure isn't too different from what we've seen from other recent Tony Hawk games, the biggest change is just how different the three lifestyles are. The good news is that you don't have to do one or the other; you can play the entire game alternating between those three lifestyle paths.
The idea of having three different lifestyles is a good one, but all three of them seem to have a few problems that keep them from being as fully realized as they could have been. For example, the Career lifestyle mainly focuses on how well you can skate and what kind of tricks you can pull off. But at the same time there seems to be an unhealthy obsession with the "Nail the Trick" mode that was introduced in last year's Project 8. In case you decided to skip Project 8, the Nail the Trick mode is a strange new trick that allows you to literally slow down time and control both of your feet at the same time. How this works is that when you are getting some air you click in both of the analog sticks to activate this mode and then you use the two analog sticks to move your legs, all while watching the skateboard's position to make sure that you don't mess it up. This mode takes a lot of practice before you can start pulling off the big combos (which they call branches in the Nail the Trick mode), but before long you'll be nailing the trick like a pro. The problem is that this mode didn't feel natural to me in Project 8, so the heavy reliance on this new mechanic in Proving Ground is disappointing to me.
But Neversoft seems content with exploring the Nail the Trick style of gameplay. In Proving Ground two more variations are added to this mode, including Nail the Grab and Nail the Manual. Nail the Grab is the easier of the two, you start it like the standard Nail the Trick, but instead of using the analog sticks to control your feet you are holding the left trigger to control your hands. Using the two analog sticks you can grab either the front or back of the board, while also moving it in different directions to increase your combo meter and score more points. And not only that, you will also be able to flip your board around if you can figure out the extremely simple button combination needed to perform that trick. Unfortunately Nail a Combo is not nearly as simple (or enjoyable). At first glance it looks like all of the other variations of this mode, but by holding the right trigger you will be able to move the board up or down until you get the optimum angle for manual. To further complicate things you can also take your finger off of the right trigger to Ollie (jump) and perform some tricks, and then, if you're good, you can hold that right trigger again and go back into a manual.
With some practice all three of the "Nail the" modes will make sense and feel somewhat natural. The problem I have is that the constant slow-motion effect takes away otherwise speedy pacing of the Tony Hawk games. I appreciate that Neversoft is trying hard to do something original with their games, but I'm still not a big fan of how these modes work.
Another big obstacle you will have to deal with while playing through the Career lifestyle is that pesky cameraman. I have nothing against photographers in real life, but the camera mechanic in Tony Hawk's Proving Ground is the very definition of awkward. When you're skating you'll see a large bubble that indicates that there's going to be a picture taken, so it's you job to trick through that bubble to get the maximum points. But that's not all; it's also your job to take the picture. So imagine, if you will, pulling off these complex stunts and then all of a sudden having to take a picture of that (which is done by pushing in the right analog stick). At first this isn't very hard, it's not difficult to grind a rail and push in the right analog stick. But towards the end of the Career lifestyle you'll be asked to Nail the Trick/Grab/Manual while also taking a picture of yourself. When you enter into the picture bubble you cease to see the game from your standard viewpoint, instead looking at yourself through the camera's lens. This means that you're going to have to be pushing the face buttons and moving the analog sticks around while also pushing the button to take the picture. And that's not all; you are still going to have to land the trick after being completely disoriented by the different point of view. There were times when I only have a split second to line up my landing because of the camera, which just added to the frustration of the overall experience.
The biggest issue I have with the camera system is that it could have been done so much better. There's really no excuse for why the camera mechanic has to act this way, most of the confusion would have gone away had Neversoft just taken out the different points of view. While it's a completely different kind of skateboarding game, EA's Skate handled this very thing in a much better way, showing you the several frames the photographer took AFTER the trick (and letting you select which is your favorite). Doing it like that would have improved my overall impressions of the Career lifestyle, the mode I should have enjoyed he most.
When you're not going through the Career lifestyle then you're probably hard at work on the second path, the Hardcore lifestyle. Of the three, Hardcore is probably the most enjoyable path you can take in Tony Hawk's Proving Ground. Early on the game introduces you to one of the best additions to the Tony Hawk gameplay - the aggro kick. Never mind the ridiculous name, the aggro kick (yes, spelled with two G's) always you to earn some extra speed by continuously hitting the right bumper button. This is one of the most useful additions to this year's Tony Hawk title, and one of those gameplay tweaks that I hope is used again in future entries in the franchise. The aggro kick allows you to pick up speed incredibly fast and helps you make those long jumps you normally wouldn't hit. You also can use it to race, which is what you'll end up doing when playing through the Hardcore lifestyle.
But wait, there's more to the Hardcore lifestyle than just jamming the aggro kick over and over, you'll also learn how to skate check and ram people out of your way. The skate checking is perhaps the most curious addition to this year's Tony Hawk game, not because it's so over the top or anything, but rather how normal it feels. To skate check you have to find a large bowl (such as a swimming pool or something) and then push and release the right bumper. You can also skate grind, which looks a lot like a regular grind ... only it lasts a shorter amount of time. The problem with this addition is that you really only skate check over stickers and cans of spray paint, there's really no other use for this move. In fact, that seems to be the problem with all of the new additions in Proving Ground, all of the moves make sense in the context of the various missions, but are not very useful when you're just skating around for fun.
That is especially true when it comes to the other new gameplay tweak given in the Hardcore lifestyle. When you're not skate checking or aggro kicking, chances are you're going to be smacking people out of your way. You heard me right; one of the new moves has you literally hitting people to make them get out of your way. At first this concept is simple and kind of fun in that guilty pleasure sort of way, I'll admit that I've always wanted to send those pesky pedestrians flying when they get in my way (and not just in the game, but that's a whole other discussion). But a little people hitting goes a long way, and unfortunately there's a lot of people hitting in the Hardcore lifestyle. In fact, the complete second half of this lifestyle path devolves into nothing but hitting, which is disappointing. Obviously you can use this move outside of the missions, but there's really no point to it since it doesn't help your actual skating.
The final lifestyle is the one that should be the most innovative and exciting, yet it's the one I had the least amount of fun with. I'm of course talking about the Rigger lifestyle, which allows you to place your own objects to aid you on your quest to get the highest score or biggest combo. We've seen rigging before in Tony Hawk games, but in past titles they've been regulated to only one or two locations and usually in a confined area. But not in Proving Ground, in this installment you will be able to lay down objects whenever and wherever you like. On paper this sounds like the greatest thing ever, I've always wanted to add a few railings and a half pipe to the city so that I can keep my combos going, and now I can thanks to this rudimentary (but still useful) rigger menu. But like all of the other lifestyle paths, the Rigger has its own share of problems.
My biggest concern with the Rigger lifestyle is that it's just no fun. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun putting down objects all over the East Coast, but the missions they have me going on are tedious and boring. Most of the Rigger missions involve you laying down objects so that you can make it to some waypoint without hitting the ground or doing it in one combo. There are far too many Rigger challenges that just have you doing the same thing over and over for no reason, which is unfortunate because you would think that the concept of laying down objects to complete missions would be ripe with possibilities. That's not to say you can't have some fun with these missions, but when compared to the other lifestyles in the game it's hard to get too excited about building and constructing.
Eventually Bam Margera shows up and everything goes downhill. Instead of having you lay down half pipes and other objects, Bam wants to teach you how to climb and hang on to the railings for dear life. While a few of Bam's tasks are somewhat entertaining, the idea of climbing in a Tony Hawk game is far from new and I'm not sure I need it explained to me as thoroughly as it is in this game. What's more, these climbing lessons would make a lot more sense if there were more ladders to scale lying around Tony Hawk's faux-East Coast. But there just aren't that many ladders, so this technique comes off feeling like another tweak made exclusively for the story missions you go on.
As you play through the three single-player stories you will be introduced to nine different techniques, most of which I've detailed in this review. Thankfully there's more to the techniques than just learning them, you will also be able to upgrade them using the points you earn from completing the various missions. But regardless of whether you upgrade these gameplay mechanics or not, the problem still remains that most of these moves are completely useless when you just want to skate around for the heck of it. You might have some fun using the aggro kick and laying down some objects, but you probably won't hit too many people out of your way and the check skating is all but useless outside of the missions. This seems to be my biggest complaint with this year's Tony Hawk experience, they added a lot of new abilities but very few of them are actually useful. The best Tony Hawk games introduce you to new abilities that are good for both the missions and the goofing off skating you'll do between the story modes.
Thankfully Neversoft did bring back some of the best elements from the other Tony Hawk games to round out this slightly uneven single-player campaign. Back are the regular skill challenges, which include testing your jump distance, your grinding skills, how long you can manual and how high you can get with a wall ride. On top of those challenges you also get the Tony Hawk 2000 arcade machine, and inspired play on the classic Tony Hawk's Pro Skater-style tasks. In this arcade game you get two minutes to complete as many challenges as you can, such as collecting a certain amount of an object, getting the C-O-M-B-O in one combo, collecting the SKATE letters and getting a high score. It's these challenges that remind me how much fun the Tony Hawk games used to be and how far the franchise has come in the last nine years. In some ways I really like the directions the newer games are going in, but it would be nice if they could mine some of the fun from the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games to make the perfect next-generation skateboarding game.
It's also worth nothing that Proving Ground recycles one of the best additions to last year's Tony Hawk game, the mutli-difficulty missions. When you go into a mission (or really any challenge found in the game) there will be three different difficulties, one for AM (amateur), one for PRO and one for SICK. Each of these difficulties will offer a progressively more difficult task for you to perform, which means that there's a lot of incentive for you to come back and actually beat the harder difficulties. Of all the recent additions made to the Tony Hawk games this has to be my favorite, I really appreciate how it's set up for both newbies and veterans of the franchise. I'll even go as far as to say that some of the "sick" challenges will have you attempting them long after you've beaten the game. Heck, you may still be trying to beat those harder tasks after next year's Tony Hawk installment has been released. But if you're one of those people who likes going into a Tony Hawk game to complete everything then there's definitely enough content to keep you busy for many months to come.
Think we're done talking about all of the new modes featured in this year's Tony Hawk game? Think again, because Neversoft has one last card up their sleeve. Taking its cue from Halo 3, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground offers a cool little video editor that gives you the opportunity to make your own skateboarding clips. The video editor itself is actually very impressive, you are able to add effects, change the camera in a number of interesting ways, and use the soundtrack to give the videos dramatic effect. Best of all, you can combine the different effects to make some professional looking videos. If you spend enough time working on your video you should be able to make something that looks almost professional, which is really saying something for a small extra inside of a skateboarding game.
Like everything else in Proving Ground, this video editor comes with a few problems that should have been addressed before the game shipped. The biggest problem is that you have to turn on the video editor, which means that you have to actively anticipate when you're going to do something worthy of saving to a video. The other problem is that the video only saves for a short amount of time, so don't expect to save some of your biggest and most impressive combos. Another problem is that Skate beat Tony Hawk to the punch, and unlike Neversoft's skateboarding game, Skate doesn't require you to turn on the video function. Neither game quite gets this video replay mode right (especially when compared to what Bungie did with Halo 3), but it's nice to see more games trying this kind of feature. I'm hoping that some of the video editing problems are cleared up with the next Tony Hawk installment.
On top of the lengthy single-player story, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground also offers a robust online mode. On top of the tried and true multiplayer modes (such as Trick Attack, Score Challenge, and Graffiti), Proving Ground offers you a couple of new modes. These new modes do add a refreshing challenge, but don't expect them to completely change your online experience. Series veterans will no doubt find a lot to love in the new online modes, the new cities work well for competitive skating and you can lay down new objects that everybody can see. It's also a lot easier to enter the online mode, all you have to do is pause the game and click the online option. The only real problem I encountered was the skill of everybody else playing the game. To some people that won't be an issue, especially those who can hold their own when playing against a half dozen other people. But if you're new to the franchise (or only play the games from time to time) the online mode can be a very intimidating place. I'm hoping that in one of the future Tony Hawk games Neversoft will address this problem and figure out some sort of ranking system that matches people up by skill, because there's no reason why the worst Tony Hawk players should be teamed up against the best Tony Hawk players.
This year's Tony Hawk game looks a lot like last year's game, only this time around the environments are darker and the whole tone of the game is grittier. The textures are all competently done and the characters look cool, but some of the charm of the new next generation graphics are starting to wear off. Unfortunately the game is plagued by a few minor (but noticeable) graphical glitches, including some clipping problems, pop in and some weird hair issues. These aren't that big of a deal, but it would be nice to see this kind of thing ironed out in future installments.
While it's easy to complain about the game looking tired and some minor problems associated with the video editor, the real issue with Tony Hawk's Proving Ground is the lack of new gameplay tweaks that actually affect the fun of the skating. After all, it's the skateboarding that everybody likes, that's the reason we buy these games year after year. Neversoft has definitely outdone themselves when it comes to adding new modes and features in this Tony Hawk game, but there's a real lack of focus here that hurts the overall product. Those who loved Tony Hawk's Project 8 will probably still enjoy this newest skateboarding game; sadly I ended up being a tad disappointed by this year's effort.
