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Tony Hawk's Project 8 Hands-On With the Sixaxis

By Jeff Gerstmann, GameSpotPosted Oct 18, 2006 5:24 pm PT

We tilt and turn our way around Tony Hawk's new challenges with the Sixaxis controller.

So far, most of the early uses of Sony's tilt- and turn-sensing PlayStation 3 controller, the Sixaxis, seem to be fairly basic. Some games will let you steer, others use it for a quick melee attack, and so on. Activision and Neversoft appear to be going quite a bit deeper with Tony Hawk's Project 8 on the PS3, letting you use the tilt and motion sensors on the controller to control almost all of your movement, balance, and tricks. Taking into account that you still need to hit the face buttons to execute tricks, you could almost play the entire game with one hand.

Tilting the controller to maintain your balance manually is just the tip of the iceberg.

Most of the Sixaxis implementation feels obvious and natural. You'll steer with slight twists to the controller, and all of your rail and manual balancing is done by tilting the controller sideways for grinds or forward and back for manuals. A quick down-up or up-down motion will get you into a manual, and a quick twist will do reverts if you're landing on a vert ramp or pivot if you're in a manual. From there, things get a little more complicated, because you can also do all of your tricks by hitting the face buttons while moving the Sixaxis around. The controls are mapped the same way they'd be on a D pad or the analog stick, so simple tricks like kickflips and heelflips are left or right and the square button. Diagonals get you varial heelflips and such, and double-tap tricks are done by moving the controller in the same direction twice. You can even pull off a no comply or a boneless by jerking the controller up before letting off the X button.

While many of the controls are just the same Tony Hawk controls mapped to a new style of input, a few things change more dramatically when you start tilting the controller. New to Project 8 is "nail the trick" mode, a slow-motion mode similar to the focus mode found in previous games but with a lot more depth. You drop in to this mode by pushing in both analog sticks. When you're playing with the regular controls, you need to grab both analog sticks and hold them in various directions, with each stick corresponding to one of your skater's feet. When the board is in the proper position, you can then move to different directions to branch off into another trick, or if the wheels are facing the earth, you can left off and put your skater's feet back on the board. With the tilt controls turned on, you still need to hit both analog sticks to drop into slow motion, but once you do, you tilt the controller around to do tricks, the idea being more that you're controlling the spin of the board, rather than each of your skater's feet. It seems as though nail the trick will take some time getting used to regardless of which style of control you use, but it also immediately seems like a powerful new addition to the series with some great scoring potential.

Dude, I'm totally gonna grind on Congress.

If you're at all squeamish about any of this tilt-controller madness, you can adjust the sensitivity to your liking or even disable parts of it. So if you want to use the tilting only for balance, you can. This seems like a good way to work your way up to full Sixaxis tilt control, as just grabbing the controller and going at it is pretty tough at first. It's a lot to think about, and Project 8's high speed doesn't give you much time to think. We didn't have enough time to go through the entire learning curve, but after 20 minutes or so, turning and balancing grinds felt pretty good, and landing simple tricks didn't seem too difficult, either. But completing the game on the "sick" difficulty still seemed like complete insanity. Look for Tony Hawk's Project 8 to come to the PlayStation 3 in November.

163 Comments

  • xrateddan

    Posted May 31, 2007 3:47 pm PT

    Looks better then the version for the PS2, which you would expect from the PS3, i'm not sure how much more this series has to offer in terms of new features. The slow motion (Board-Time) doesn't really work on the PS2 but should hopefully be more polished and work better on the PS3. Otherwise looks sharp as ever!

  • HXCDEW

    Posted Oct 24, 2006 7:49 am PT

    Sounds very good to me! Hell, the SIXAXIS is already making me forget about rumble, which I turned off anyway except it didn't work! The 6XIS also takes off some of the hype about the "Wiimote" and I can't wait to find out how other developers continue to make better use of this controller.

  • Hikiera

    Posted Oct 24, 2006 3:50 am PT

    I wonder what new tricks you can do?

  • desert-sniper24

    Posted Oct 23, 2006 7:38 pm PT

    Looks awesome, but couldn't they seem to make it a little larger like the size of a 360 controller, and include a rumble as well? Just even a small one?

  • fender_ketchup

    Posted Oct 23, 2006 1:14 pm PT

    I always turned the rumble off anyway, so it's absence means nothin'.

  • Minpindo

    Posted Oct 22, 2006 10:12 pm PT

    gonna suck to fall and not get a rumble. i think that will really hurt this game. also, i can't see how doing bluntslides will be possible in a lot of situations due to how long it would take to tilt the thing twice.

  • Kbs64

    Posted Oct 22, 2006 3:36 pm PT

    Holly Axis Batman

  • Lion_heart_

    Posted Oct 22, 2006 2:31 pm PT

    @barnett666

    First you say this:
    "But I do know that the 360 version sticks to the format that everyone loves and is use to, and seems like the best since THPS3."

    and then...

    "truely great, new and engaging."

    Its definetly not new, and seriously not engaging. Its the same old concept over and over again, without any new gameplay element added. And engaging? When you're used to something, its not engaging anymore.

    the PS3 version is superior over the 360 version by far. Have you even read the whole article?! It states you can CHOOSE whether you want to use the SIXAXIS tilt sensor or not. Just disable it if you dont like it.

    And people who want something new and engaging, they enable the tilt control. Simple as that.

    If you want something challeging for Tony Hawk, dont say 360 is the best choice. Thats just biased.

  • _Sam_

    Posted Oct 22, 2006 9:39 am PT

    it looks pretty good so far

  • ccubegman

    Posted Oct 22, 2006 6:37 am PT

    sounds good to me, can't wait to test it!

  • theKeeb

    Posted Oct 21, 2006 11:54 am PT

    I WANT THIS GAME!!!

  • yugimasa9999

    Posted Oct 21, 2006 8:11 am PT

    This IS a great IDEA for a game design dreamer like me !!!

  • CLeRKSfan4life

    Posted Oct 21, 2006 4:58 am PT

    This looks like it will be quite hard to get used to.To me, the tilt function seem to fit with the Wii's Tony Hawk Downhill Jam as that game is totally different. It's more of racing game with a lot of snow/skate boarding type elements thrown in. TH Project 8 though is a sequel to an already well known formula.

    I'm not saying the "SIXAXIS" will make the game crappy. I'm just saying that maybe the regular method of control would work better for this game.

  • barnett666

    Posted Oct 20, 2006 6:49 pm PT

    Lol. i know that getting the sic scores will literatly be impossible with this controller. who cares about what might be in 2-3 years. not gonna wait that long. not gonna screw several years of playing games through spite of hating a system. But I do know that the 360 version sticks to the format that everyone loves and is use to, and seems like the best since THPS3. truely great, new and engaging. Realease this game for the love of god! (not that he exists ofc, just a way of expressing my desperation of wanting this game to come out )

  • Murpheus007

    Posted Oct 20, 2006 6:45 pm PT

    Not a Hawk fan, but still looks kinda cool.

  • lextexrex

    Posted Oct 20, 2006 2:58 pm PT

    Why wouldn't this be online? 3 and up were. It's free anyways. (However, I myself would practice a bit before Iheadonline so I didn't look like a total idiot). How can you incorporate slow motion during online though?

  • andypipkin85

    Posted Oct 20, 2006 2:17 pm PT

    People say the Wii sucks because it implements and sells itself on its main gimmick, the "wiimote" which costs a fortune to use to its fullest potential as you need to buy the analog stick part of it seperatly (not working out so cheap anymore now is it?!), where as the PS3's "sixaxis" gives you the CHOICE of either playing your games like normal, or using the new next-gen gimmick, (motion sensing gameplay) WITHOUT having to buy MORE controllers, like Nintendo want you to do if you dont want to play with the stupid "wiimote".
    The Wii also sucks due to its immense lack of processing power and the fact that its not even a next-gen console and basically is just an upgraded Gamecube, which isnt a good thing.

  • 11rage11

    Posted Oct 20, 2006 1:04 pm PT

    I KNEW IT! as soon as everyone found out that PS3 had moition sensitivity in the controller everyone would go Hey thats cool! but everyone else says the wii sucks BECAUSE of that feature! HA! But still the game looks cool

  • faridmon

    Posted Oct 20, 2006 10:52 am PT

    its more like Tony hawk project 8 X downhill jam to me, i mean the tillt looks more like how the wii-mote tillt and especially in Tony Hak project 8.
    but i love tony ahwk games, so i will buy ths foe my PS3 cough*after 3 years*cough* and Downhill jam, the Wii is the Extreme dude, totaly

  • ChancreScolex

    Posted Oct 20, 2006 5:43 am PT

    It's not dualshock 3 because there is no vibration mechanism inside of the controller as of yet.

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