Fancy yourself a bit of a skater? Don't want to run the risk of falling over and damaging your pretty face? Tony Hawk understands. With some help from Activision, he's offering a demo of his latest - Tony Hawk's Proving Ground on Xbox Live, starting today. Go check it out - see the new gameplay mechanics and the advanced features - and get your first taste of choosing your own skating style, in the deepest, most customisable skateboarding game ever.


Your 1.04GB download takes you to Philadelphia (one of the three cities featured ingame), where can choose to be a contest-winning Career Athlete, a fast and furious Hardcore Skater, or a maverick Rigger who sees the entire world as their own skate park. Progressing through the game will see you achieving the latest advancements in the franchise - the Aggro Kick (for clearing huge gaps - no talking bathmats here!), Rigging goals (changing the evironment in order to make unique skate lines), and Nail the Grab (for ultimate control of grab tricks and tweaks)... not to mention the fully-featured video editor so you can make your own eXtreme Sports vids.

Tony Hawk's Proving Ground is due out in October, and this summer's shaping up to be packed with skating games. If you're a fan of the genre, you're in for a treat.