Project 8 - The best Tony Hawk so far

Tony Hawk has been on the skating scene since I was in Junior High and I'm in my 30s. Needless to say, the guy is too old to skate competitively, so he’s turned to selling his name on skating video games. Shrewd move since the Tony Hawk franchise has sold many units and is the preferred skater sim. Is the latest in the line a true next-gen skating game?

Read on, dear reader....

•• Story ••
This story is as simple as all other games like this, but doesn’t suffer from the weirdness that the previous game, American Wasteland, suffered from. Instead, you are a skater who wants to make Tony Hawk’s Project 8 – the top ranked skaters in the world. Get there and you win the game. The story doesn’t get any more complex than that, nor does it need. You don’t play this kind of game for deep narrative structure. You play it to sk8!

•• Gameplay ••
Like all other Tony hawk games, the idea is to do tricks and gain points. There world is absolutely filled with all kinds of things to do tricks on. As well, the world is totally open (once you break out of the suburbs) and there are no loading screens. The developers have done an excellent job of streaming the world in as you need it and that’s a challenging task.

The world consists of jumps, half pipes, rails, and many, many other things you can trick from. A trick is preformed by hitting combinations of buttons, triggers, and analog sticks while in the midst of a jump, grind, or mailbox spin. Performing these tricks gets you points.

As well, there are specific challenges you can attempt. Each challenge is different, but they all revolve around tricks in some sort of timed manner. You may be required to grind along a chalk path that a previous skater rode and beat his time. Or you may have to follow a photographer and mimic his tricks. Or some guy with a video camera may have you do specific types of tricks on camera. If all of this sounds familiar, it is. You’ve seen tis kind of challenge in other Tony hawk games and other titles such as Amped 3. As far as these tricks go,they are fairly run of the mill.

But new ground is broken with the nail a trick challenge. If a nail appears, and you trigger it, you are put into nail a trick mode. As soon as you jump off the ramp, you are zoomed into your feet and perform the trick in slow motion. The analog sticks act as your feet and you keep them in position until your skateboard is either straight up or down. When it is in the right location, you can move one or both of the sticks to flip, turn, or rotate the board. Let go of both sticks at just the right time to land the trick. This is trick micro-management and it’s is the best part of the game.

Taking another page from Amped 3, there‘s also a mode dedicated to crashing. At an inopportune time, you’ll be unceremoniously ejected from your board with the sole intent to crash into something. Strangely addictive, this will go over well with the Burnout crowd. I found it fun. But not the most engaging part of the game.

While the gameplay is fun, it still suffers from being a bit juvenile. Some of the challenges are dumb (chase the RC car being controlled b y a guy in a raccoon suit?) and others just make no sense (shag golf balls for your dad by doing tricks on a half pipe? Huh?). They are meant to be goofy and attract a young crowd, but they end up alienating more serious gamers.

Like to customize? Simply go to your room (yet another way to attract a young crowd) and swap out boards you’ve earned or change clothes. Nothing fantastic here, but for those who like to customize, it should satisfy.

•• Graphics ••
Project 8 is a huge leap up from American Wasteland. And luckily it’s not just a port from a lesser console. Great efforts were taken to make the characters look good and give the world a highly detailed texture. As mentioned before, there aren’t any loading screens, so the streaming is top notch with no visible popping in of objects and no lagging framerate. Lots of objects and lots of detail make this the best looking Tony Hawk game to date.

•• Sound ••
The soundtrack of Project 8 is very good, albeit filled with less known skater music. I heard a few classic rock songs, but most of it was stuff I didn’t know. That said, the music was appropriate and mostly catchy. It didn’t stray into the far indie like the Amped games did, but it stays with a good blend of classics and catchy stuff you may not know.

The sound effects are also solid with excellent skating sounds and the ever gruesome crunching when you crash. Ambient sounds are abundant, though they tend to be mindless skate chatter. As well, the voice actors range from the stereotypical to the famous. Jason Lee makes an appearance, but his vocal performance is pretty much phoned in. The other skaters do their best, but they aren’t actors, they’re skaters.

•• Multiplayer ••
The multiplayer is pretty good, but I found myself bored with it quickly. I preferred the open city more interesting to find new places to explore and trick. But for those who like multi-player, there is some goodness here. Live leader boards and trick competitions are the staple of the online offering. But keeping track of your leader board scores is fairly addictive and will keep skaters vying for top place for many hours.

•• Achievements ••
The achievements in Project 8 are fairly basic, with a few good ones thrown in for variety. You get some for simply completing the game and others for doing large point tricks. There are also some for playing online. In all, not too shabby, but not the most original either. Achievement junkies should be able to get all of them after playing the full game and a few hours online.

•• Parents Should Know ••
This game is rated T for Teen and is virtually harmless. A good crash will leave a brief spot of blood on the cement and running into other skaters might initiate some hostility, but other than that this should be safe for anyone over 10.

•• Conclusion ••
The best of the Tony Hawk games, pick this one up and go exploring!