Tony Hawk's Proving Ground (Xbox 360)

One grind forward...two grinds back.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 3

If you've ever had d&eacure;jà vu of a d&eacure;jà vu that reminded you of a time that you had d&eacure;jà vu, you'll know exactly how I felt when I fired up Tony Hawk's Proving Ground. It's the ninth installment in the Hawk series, and it does what every previous version of the game has done -- thrown in a few new toys for gamers to skate with while taking them through a familiar leveling-up storyline. With EA's Skate impressing the daylights out of most gamers, this latest Hawk comes off as a paler version of its predecessors.

While Skate takes far more of a sim approach to the world of skating, Proving Ground attempts -- in its own small way -- to make things more realistic. In last year's Project 8, your goal was to move up the hierarchy of skaters from number 200 up to a spot in the elite eight. It was a goofy enough premise, made only goofier by the arbitrary way you moved up the ladder: You'd do a flipkick in some suburban backyard swimming pool and then get a message saying that now you're at #193.

In Proving Ground, your progression is a bit truer to life -- it's a lot more open-ended, and it allows you to choose the type of skater you want to be and learn the skills you want to learn. There are three paths you can take. If you decide to be a Career skater, your goal is fame, money, and recognition. If you're a Hardcore skater, you play by your own rules and don't care what anyone else thinks. If you're a Rigger, you're into designing the most screwed up tricks imaginable and then landing them. Each path has its own specialty moves that you'll learn.

Early on, you'll be able to dabble in all three styles, which is cool because it allows you to learn the basics of the different paths and acquire some nifty skills. Eventually, when you have to spend talent points to advance, you'll need to focus more on the type of skating you want to do. The system creates a lot of freedom, as you can pick and choose when -- and if -- you want to bother learning different tricks.

That said, the tricks you do learn will put smiles on the faces of longtime Hawk players. The size of that smile, though, will depend on what tricks you're talking about. Big-smile tricks include the new Nail-the-Grab. In the Career path, you'll not only unlock the slo-mo Nail-the-Trick feature from Project 8, but you'll also have the chance to learn Nail-the-Grab. When you're in the air, hit both sticks to get into the Nail-the-Trick mode. Then hit the left trigger to get you into the grab mode where each of the sticks controls one of your hands. It takes some getting used to. We didn't find it as user-friendly as the Nail-the-Trick, but then again, we've been doing the Nail-the-Trick thing for about a year.

Smaller smiles will come from a couple of features from the Hardcore path. To get a little more speed on the ground, you can use the new Aggro Kick. By timing the pressing of the right shoulder button with the movement of your skater's leg, you can get an extra-powerful push-off. It's a cool idea that you'll find yourself using often. There's no quicker way to get your speed back up after a bail than by a few well-timed Aggro Kicks. We found the timing on the Aggro Kick far easier to nail in this version of the game then on the PS3. Mainly it was due to the vibration in the controller: When you hit it right, you actually feel it. The feather-light Sixaxis doesn't deliver in that department.