It's hard to imagine that a mere eight years ago, my best mate was telling me about some "sick" new skateboarding game to hit the Playstation. We spent that weekend skating from the Big Apple to the streets of San Fran, busting out McTwists and 900's until our eyes bled and our thumbs were ridden with blisters. Recently returning to the streets as a skater myself, I'm a little older, a little wiser but still playing every title Neversoft shoots my way. Now nine titles on, Tony Hawk's is still going strong as the dominant king of the skating genre. The only difference now is that EA has slyly released its own contender in the ring in the form of Skate., which has chosen to go against the grain offering a return to the roots of skating. With the two titles head-to-head, can the Birdman keep his throne?

After nine games, the Tony Hawk series has seen its fair share of developments and changes. The fourth instalment broke the strict two-minute mould and brought us huge, open levels to attempt challenges as we wished, whilst the THUG series was the first to introduce a real sense of story and purpose to the games. American Wasteland brought an attempt at linking the game together as one big interconnected world. In actuality it was just a number of levels linked together by tunnels that masked the loading times, but it was a hint to the massive open world we'd see in Project 8 and again in this latest release. With Proving Ground, Neversoft has admirably tried to blend all the elements of the game together into the one mode. Online multiplayer, classic mode (the traditional two minute runs) and even the Create-A-Park elements are intertwined seamlessly with the single player game.


It wouldn't be a new Tony Hawk game without some spiffy new tricks and THPG is no exception. Career mode is broken into three story streams consisting of Career, Hardcore and Rigger, each with three unique abilities. Each skater style is distinctly different, focusing on different elements and views of skater culture. The Career skater is just concerned about going for glory and having his name up in lights. The Career stream will teach you to master the slow-motion Nail the Trick mode, as well as the newly introduced Nail The Grind and Nail the Manual modes. The Hardcore skater focuses on a more aggressive style of skating; carving bowls, knocking down pedestrians and skating solely for the love of the sport. The Rigger is out to manipulate the world to his advantage. A Da Vinci of the urban jungle, the Rigger customises the world by inventing new sick lines with the Rig-A-Kit mode (think an on the fly Create-A-Park) editor, as well as improved abilities in climbing and breaking & entering to source those new sweet spots.

Any fan of the series knows now how to link together an insane number of tricks to land those killer combos, my biggest gripe then is that the game seems to work against you, just for the sake of upping the difficulty.

An early mission required me to skate a line in one combo, collecting bits of equipment. Simple enough I thought, but then you are required to photograph yourself on each bit of kit as you collect the items. The camera pulls away and then you must click the right stick, whilst still controlling your boarder, to take the image. A complication in itself as you madly to balance your rider, salt is added to wound as the game asks you whether you would like to save the image as soon as you take the shot on each and every station. Never mind the fact you are in the middle of a tricky combo, but have you considered capturing that special Kodak moment. The images admittedly look rather ordinary anyway, so why even bother? Perhaps if lines were automatically triggered and displayed as a multi-angle skate video of your combo I could understand, but it just feels like an unnecessary addition to introduce a new element of challenge to the game. Not to mention, taking a photo in the middle of a grab challenge feels like an awkward impossibility as you struggle to hold the face button and click the right stick. Similarly on other challenges I'd need to bust out a trick via Nail the Trick mode whilst jumping a large gap and the camera would pull well away from your skater so you can barely see the position of the board, a pain in the ass considering you must plant your feet just right. IT'S JUST NOT FAIR!

The over complication of the game made me pine for the simplicity of EA's Skate.. Whilst Skate. is far from perfection, it at least feels like a genuine struggle as you aim to master the precision of the controls. With the first six titles already done and dusted, I know I'm good at the games, I don't need someone to break my legs and tell me to pick up my game. Fortunately the classic multi-challenge 2 minute runs return, but these are nowhere near the greatness of THPS2 or 3. Xbox Live support is available, as I mentioned, but no one is playing from my experience which was a disappointment and perhaps offers an indication to the game's reception. Nonetheless, the city is still absolutely massive and sports some fantastic lines and locations in its mishmash of Baltimore, DC and Philly. It's great to just mess about and explore the city at your own will.

Graphics up the ante as you'd expect, but character models are ugly as hell and almost Neanderthal-like in nature. Fortunately the soundtrack is top notch, as per usual, with a little something for everyone from rock, punk, hip-hop, hardcore and alternative. By everyone, I mean everyone that should be interested in skating. If you're after brain melting electronic beats or bubblegum pop it might just be time to pick a new sport.


If you still boast about your 50 million point combo skills then you'll still likely be keen to scope out the new abilities and new lines around the city. There is still something so enjoyable about going balls out, breaking the laws of physics and chaining together a combo that would make even the pros cower in fear. Games are meant to be about escapism after all.

The Tony Hawk's series has once again evolved, but not without some blunders. If you're willing to take the good with the bad, there's a lengthy challenge in the title. The revolution promised by EA's Skate. might just be the more appealing option for skaters and gamers alike, neither are perfect, but different strokes for different folks as they say: Tony's for the love of competition and Skate. for the love of the sport.

Tony will need to pick up his game in the inevitable tenth instalment or else it might just be time for Hawk to retire in the virtual world as well.