Everyone remembers all those years ago when the first Tony Hawk game came out. The year was 1999 and it was the year Tony Hawk landed the big 900. He also landed a deal with Activision to release games based around him and skateboarding. During the early years, the games provided something that had never been executed before in videogames; it was a good, solid skateboarding videogame. The series started off huge, and the games fell short of stellar. As the years went by, the games became a series of repetition and seemed to lose its shine. Over the course of 12 years, 14 games were released. In 2007, that iteration of the Tony Hawk franchise, was Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground.
Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground does what most of the other Tony Hawk games do; they let YOU be the skater and do whatever you want. For the most part, the game lets you do just that. You are put into a open, albeit small, world where you can skate (almost) anywhere. You can’t skate on the water, so don’t bother trying that…The game starts you off in Downtown Philly. And, as you progress through the story, you can access many other different areas. Places such as Baltimore and Washington D.C. are opened for you skate in. The overall map of the game isn’t as big as it sounds, but provides plenty of places to skate. You may skate the same place twice, but it doesn’t get “boring.” There isn’t a fast way to get from one end of the map to the next, so if you’re at one end, you’ll have to manual-ly get from one end to the next. Which gets tedious considering how many missions are available.
Has anyone ever heard anyone say how great a Tony Hawk game’s story was? Well, that’s because there usually isn’t one. There may be a small plot involved to where the skater is small-time and becomes this big success upon meeting all these professional skaters and rises to stardom, a typical underdog story. Well, it doesn’t change much in this game. Skating in the downtown city of Philly, you play a character that just skates the local spots and begins to see a couple of famous, pro skaters. You interact with them, they teach you a few tricks, (or vice-versa) and the “story” begins to unfold. You can choose to pursue three different types of story arcs; the Career story, the Rigger story, or the Hardcore story. Each arc provides its own flare and special skills. The game doesn’t stop you from choosing which one you want, and in fact, encourages you to complete all three, so there’s no pressure in choosing which one you want to play. The story really isn’t in place to “Wow” anyone, but is just there as a placeholder for something the player can do. The only real reason that anyone would want to play the story is to unlock the other areas of the map.
However, not many people are going to be playing a Tony Hawk game for the story, they’ll be playing for the gameplay. They want to have the freedom to skate whenever, wherever, and however they want. The game does give you a lot of options on what to skate, how to skate it, and where. Nail-the-Trick returns from Project 8 and introduces two new modes; Nail the Grab and Nail the Manual. The two new modes introduces some fresh variety in creating new tricks and creates a whole new way to extend combos. Players can still get off your board in the game, but it doesn’t really provide with any purpose, except for extending combos and possibly avoiding bails. You may just end up not using the feature anyway, as walking/jumping seems so clunky and broken in comparison to skating around. Getting off your board does incorporate into the story, and missions do include you using this feature, but you’ll spend more time looking at your TV in disbelief when you can’t seem to perform simple tasks. The game does include arcade machines throughout the world map, and provides all sorts of “old-school” modes. The original modes from the earlier games make a wonderful return, and provides a new game type, “Hawk-man.” In this game type, the player must collect a series of pellets by either grinding over the yellow ones, air ticking the red ones, manualing the green ones, and wall riding over the blue ones. There are 75 total pellets to collect in each machine, and provides a certain test of wrill to collect all of them. If you’re brave (or skilled) enough, you can collect all 75 in one combo to obtain the SICK rating. In accompany with all of the arcade machines players can play, there is also plenty of side challenges players can attempt to complete. There are Photo challenges, video challenges, line challenges, and skill challenges to complete. There’s also plenty of gaps to find and secret “cash” spots to collect. Overall, the game provides you with plenty of variety of things to play, so there isn’t ever a time where you’ll wonder what to try next.
Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground is a fairly fun, and enjoyable game in the Tony Hawk series, and is a good addition to the franchise. The game is good, and you’ll have a fun time playing it, but you may seem to find that you won’t be able to look over the small things. Avid Tony Hawk fans will enjoy the game for what it is, but first time players may want to steer clear. The game is (more than likely) the hardest game in the franchise. If gamers can oversee the small things, they’ll see an enjoyable experience.
Author’s Note: The achievements in this game are not to be joked about. Completing this game to the 1000g will cause some controller-breaking, hair-pulling fury. This game requires, what seems like, the impossible. Completing all challenges to a SICK rating will attempt to break your spirit and destroy your life. The implementation of cheat codes helps for the most part, but completing the challenges will require intense patience and skill. For those who are attempting, Good Luck. For those who have started and haven’t finished, I’m sorry.
3.0