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Tony Hawk Proving Ground Review (X360)

About.com Rating 3.5 Star Rating
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By , About.com Guide

Tony Hawk Proving Ground Review (X360) Activision
Tony Hawk needs a year off. Nine games in nine years is just too much. The gameplay has become too complicated, the level designs aren’t nearly as good, and the fun and humor and real skater feel just isn’t there anymore. With the first real competition that the series has ever had this year in EA’s Skate, the latest Tony Hawk game just feels old and outdated by comparison. Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground is an okay game, but it isn’t anything special.
Quick Hits

  • Title: Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground
  • Platform:Xbox 360
  • Publisher: Activision
  • Developer: Neversoft
  • ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
  • Genre: Skateboarding
  • Pros: Core gameplay is still fun; the new balance meter is great
  • Cons: Level designs aren’t great; new modes and additions seem to just get in the way; presentation fails to impress

Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground starts out similarly to the last few games where you are a nobody and want to work your way up through the ranks and earn respect from your fellow skaters. Proving Ground switches it up because it gives you three distinct paths to explore. The career path is all about hanging with pro skaters and shooting skate videos. The hardcore path is all about rough and tough and causing havoc. And the rigger path has you placing new objects into levels via a simple level editor to create new trick lines. Each path is made up of several episodes where you take on goals for a pro in order to advance through the campaign and unlock new stuff. These new paths and ideas are somewhat cool, but the whole experience is dragged down by the fact that you start out with basically no skills and have to learn everything before you can use it even if it is stuff you (the gamer in real life, not your lame avatar) already know how to do.

Online multiplayer is also present, of course, and is just as fun as ever. There is something much more fun and satisfying about playing against real players rather than trying to complete some of the goofy and downright stupid goals the game throws at you in single-player.

Activision
The gameplay in Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground is instantly familiar if you have played any Tony Hawk in the last several years. The core skating is just as solid as ever, and finding new lines, earning crazy high scores; and just skating around is still a lot of fun. Outside of the core aspects, though, the game seems to have become too complicated for its own good and things are being added simply to accommodate new goal types rather than really improving the actual skateboarding. New stuff in Proving Ground includes the aggro kick, which gives you a speed boost so you can clear bigger gaps, and the slow motion Nail the Trick system from Project 8 has been expanded to include manuals and grabs. The “Nail the …” stuff was kind of cool last year, but the new grabs are surprisingly limited and the manuals suffer from a horrible camera angle that focuses on your board and you can’t actually see where you are going. Another new gameplay addition is photo goals where you not only have to get to where the camera is, but you have to perform a trick, and then also press in the right stick to take the picture. These are just frustrating and goofy. The rigger tool is also rather flawed because it is just poorly executed, hard to use, and the goals aren’t even that interesting because they are too simple or involve long grind lines to get from goal to goal which just aren’t that much fun to build or to skate. The new goals and new control additions have just overwhelmed the pure skating aspect of the series and it just plain isn’t all that fun anymore.
How I Would Fix It

You know what? I’m tired of being a no name rookie and starting from the bottom and working my way up. I miss the glory days of being a Pro Skater where each skater had a different style and set of tricks. I miss those days of simple goals. If miss those days of smaller, but far better designed levels. To fix the Tony Hawk’s franchise and rejuvenate the fanbase, I would make Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5. Forget about huge open world levels. Forget about THUG2, Bam Margera, Jackass, and that whole moronic attitude that has plagued the last few games and go back to just skating. Give us small, well designed levels, a two minute timer, classic goals, simple yet addictive high score gameplay, and a roster of pro skaters to choose from, and I guarantee that the Tony Hawk’s franchise would be respected again rather than quick bargain bin fodder that it has become.

Graphics

Graphically, Proving Ground looks pretty much like Project 8, but with maybe a step back in overall quality. Project 8 had a smooth and colorful overall look, but Proving Ground is kind of dark and dingy and it just isn’t as attractive overall even if it might be packing more detail. The animation is great, but the human character models still have those freaky looking faces.

Sound

The sound is on par with all of the other Tony Hawk games. The soundtrack is fairly decent and the skateboarding sounds are fine. And, predictably, all of the voice acting from the pro skaters sounds flat and extremely disinterested. Par for the course here.

Bottom Line

Activision
Overall, Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground is an okay game, but it isn’t going to really wow you. There are plenty of new additions, but with each new game in this series it becomes clearer and clearer that the magic and appeal of the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater has been lost and the focus has shifted from pure, arcade-style skateboarding to a phony wannabe skater lifestyle sim. It just isn’t fun anymore. I am not saying it is a bad game, but compared to the best this series has offered in the past, or even EA’s Skate, Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground is merely a rental at best.

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