Publisher: Activision
Developer: Neversoft Entertainment
Genre: Extreme Sports
Players: 1-2 (8 Online)
Rating: T (For Teen)
Release Date: October 15, 2007
Tony Hawk's Proving Ground Official Website
Tony Hawk's Proving Ground Gallery

Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground is here to prove that this series just isn’t what it used to be.

The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series has come a long way since its conception back on the PS1 in 1999. This game has seen tons of new elements from the inclusion of skate park editors to customizable characters and personalized tricks. Even more so than in other years, it was easy to get your hopes built up around this installment because of the new competition surrounding EA’s aptly named Skate. Unfortunately, the new additions this year are nothing to marvel over, and if you’ve played any Tony Hawk game in the last six years you’re best off passing on this one.

Story

The story surrounding Proving Ground feels half-baked and tacked on. Basically, as an up and coming skater in the East Coast you have to meet up with pro skaters on the street to build a name for yourself. Although the game boasts of how you can pick your path as either a Career, Rigger, or Hardcore skater, the whole game involves completing different “episodes” in order to gain sponsorships to create a skate team and other things of that nature. Ultimately, you find yourself in a bunch of loosely based events in no particular order, offering a very limited sense of freedom.

Gameplay

The new features in Proving Ground aren’t anything to marvel over, and it’s clear that Neversoft is running out of ideas for this genre. Easily the most talked about addition is the Nail-the-Grab mode and its variations. When you’re in the air, pressing both of the analog sticks in will slow down time, giving you complete and total control over the board. Using the two sticks, you can flip your board, tweak out grabs, and perform finger flips. Instead of pressing a certain button to do a trick, there’s plenty of room for creativity when it comes to branching tricks together.

On paper it sounds cool enough to be able to come up with your own moves, but the actual process wears thin once the initial novelty is depleted. Part of the problem resides simply in the fact that there’s no limit as to how many times you can nail a trick. If you wanted to, you could slow down time for an entire run, but that’s not what skateboarding is about. The slow-paced nature of nailing a trick will bore any gamer relatively quickly, and the difficulty involved in executing a high-scoring combo makes this feature a turn-off anyways.

On the other hand, the addition of Aggro kicks and other tricks to gain speed are great when utilized correctly.  By doing an Aggro kick, the game simply puts you in control of how hard your skater pushes off. By timing several kicks accurately in a row, you’ll be flying at top speeds regardless of where you are. This makes it a lot easier if you’re trying to clear huge gaps or if you’re just trying to land a tough trick. In addition, Aggro pushes can be performed during a manual to build up speed, which helps when you’re trying to string together tricks in a skate park. As an added touch, you can also push off walls, cars, and even other skaters if you can get the timing down.

Grinding for the ladies.

The three different skate types each have their own set of moves that you have to learn during the story mode. To start off, bowl skating is exclusive to Hardcore skaters. When Lance Mountain first tells you that you’ll be shredding inside empty pools and slash grinding bowls, it’s hard not to get excited, but the execution here is anything but exciting. To carve inside a bowl or pool, you simply hit a button and watch your skater speed up around the lip. Aside from being incredibly impractical in terms of scoring, successfully carving requires you to be at just the right height inside the bowl, so more often than not you’ll end up making a limp appearance. Slash grinds, which are just like regular grinds except if you lose your balance you don’t bail, are fitting but not extremely necessary. Since the first THPS game we’ve been able to grind on the edge of things, and slash grinds don’t do anything to change this.

The Rigging feature is hit-or-miss solely based on your personality. If you’re like me, then you don’t want to spend hours upon hours adding quarter pipes and rails to your Skate Lounge because you know that no matter what you do, the level designers will do it better. However, if you like being creative then the amount of depth here should suit you well. By tapping R1 and L1 at the same time your skater will walk instead of skate, allowing you to reach hidden areas by using ladders, poles, wires and many other objects. You can rig these hidden spots easily by pressing Select to enter the object placement menu, and it isn’t incredibly difficult to setup a ramp that will help you cross a gap. While you can certainly have a lot of fun with a little help from your imagination, the time it takes to make something significant coupled with the fumbling around from the menus will make this generally unappealing.