Sequels are supposed to add to the game that preceded them, not deduct from.
The story behind Tony Hawk's Project 8 is that Tony Hawk himself wants to find the eight best amateur skateboarders and recruit them into a team, which he calls "Project 8" (hence the title). To do this you have to work your way up from the bottom and prove that you are better than 200 other skateboarders. To do this, you complete goals and competitions. You eventually make your way up to Project 8 in your attempt to become the best skateboarder.
Instead of choosing the difficulty level at the start of the story mode, the difficulty is determined by how far into a goal you get. What I mean by this, is there are 3 difficulty settings for a goal. You are only required to get the easiest one, but if you want to rank up a bit higher, than it is better to go the extra distance and shoot for the 2 more difficult options. For example, say the goal is to grind a long rail. Well, one third of the way into the rail will be a mark that represents the easiest difficulty. If you made it that far, you can ollie off of the rail and land it and complete the goal. But, you can still keep grinding if you want and try to get to the other points.
During your story, you will constantly get the chance to impress pro skaters and get bumped up in the rankings quite a bit. You will have to do some kind of trick or stunt that is a bit more complicated to perform than your average goal. I like to think of these as the 'boss fights' of the game, since having a ridiculously out of place boss fight in an extreme sports game liket he second Matt Hoffman game had. You will also have to participate in competitions if you want to proceed in the game. The latter competitions I found to be much harder than in previous Tony Hawk games. But these competitions are still exactly the same as they have always been, just with some added difficulty.
This editions new big feature is called 'Nail the Trick'. When you perform Nail the Trick, the screen zooms in to mainly the skateboard itself and the feet of your skateboarder and everything becomes slow motion. Now, you use the two thumbsticks to kick your feet in certain directions to execute flip tricks. Each thumbstick represents a foot and you get link up the tricks to get some massive amounts of points. Nail the Trick is required for some goals but other than that, it's not the type of new feature that you will be constantly be using. It is interesting, but by no means sets the standards for a new feature.
Other than what I listed above, Project 8 is about the same game as every other game in the series. It does not bring what should be expected. (Should is the key word in that sentence. Tony Hawk games haven't exactly been revolutionary in some time). In fact, Neversoft actually stripped down a lot in Project 8. The Create-A-Skater mode is incredible bare bones. This is very surprising because Tony Hawk games were notorious for having a great create-a-player mode. Not only that, but there is no Create-A-Park mode whatsoever which really struck me as odd. Don't expect to see any online options either, unless you are playing the Xbox 360 version. Sadly, this was a very half-assed Tony Hawk game that was just focused on getting it done on time.
The visuals this year don't look too great. With the Xbox 360 out, and the Playstation 3 released around the time this game came out, it really looks outdated. Not only that, but it very well may look worse than its predecessor, American Wasteland. The levels just aren't very imaginitive. Really, none of this game is. It lost most of its charm with is a major disappointment. The level design isn't so great and there isn't enough diversity in it. Project 8 should have taken a cue from past games like Pro Skater 4. Unfortunately, it chose not to.
The voice acting is still spot on, and the dialogue is still pretty good but at times ridiculous and cheesy. The licensed sound track is definitely what you'd come to expect from a Tony Hawk game, which essentially means that it is great and has something for everyone. The soundtrack consists of famous bands like The Ramones, Wolfmother, Plus 44, The Transplants, Bad Religion, Slayer and more. Maybe not the best soundtrack of the Tony Hawk games, but it's there (unlike countless other features of this game), and it works.
With all that being said, Project 8 still has a pretty fun career mode, if not a bit stale. The goals are tougher than they've ever been, but I am still feel some major deja-vu every time I play this game. I can't believe they stripped this game down to having nearly no extras. I'm going to be honest, Project 8 is the worst game in the series and a prime disappointment in my book. Sequels are supposed to add to the game that preceded them, not deduct from. Overall, Tony Hawk's Project 8 is not a bad game but there is enough room to fill a warehouse of stuff that should have been included but wasn't.