LOZFAN6537's Review of Tony Hawk's Project 8

Project 8 is exactly what the Tony Hawk series needs. A great game to pull the series out of the slump it’s been in.

User Rating: 9.6 | Tony Hawk's Project 8 X360

By LOZFAN6537 | Review Date: February 20, 2007

Tony Hawk's Project 8 is the eighth game in the Tony Hawk series and pulls the series out of the slump it’s been in. The three games before Project 8 all featured some sort of stupid story with boring characters and lame dialogue. Thankfully Project 8 steers away from that for the most part. There is still a small story but not as much as the last three games. You play as your character and am trying to get into Tony Hawks new skate video called Project 8 he's taking the best eight undiscovered skaters and filming a video with them. You start out at rank 200 and have to get all the way to number 8. You rank up by complete the many goals scattered around Beaver Town. The universe is completely open and unlike American Wasteland where you had to either ride a bus or skate through a long tunnel there are no loading times at all in Project 8. The gameplay in Project 8 is fantastic the goals are different and fun. They range from following a filmer and busting out tricks to spot challenges where you have to bust a trick like a manual or grind and make it to the markers without wiping out. Another really cool thing about Project 8 is for almost every goal there are three rankings: Am, Pro, and Sick if it’s a goal where you need to get a high score the Am ranking will be pretty low, the Pro goal will be higher, and the Sick goal will be much higher. Having three different rankings on almost every goal is very cool and makes it so there is much more to do.

The skating in Project 8 is about the same as American Wasteland but it feels more realistic. You can't do 540 Double Backflips anymore and some tricks like the Darkslide which wasn't a special trick in the last game has become a special trick again. Some changes have been made to the controls now instead of pushing down on the control stick to do flips you hold down the L Trigger and push the control stick up or down depending on what kind of flip you want to do. There is also a new trick that has been added called Nail the Trick it isn't really a trick but its very cool. There are lots of Nail the Trick goals but normally to activate it you press down on both sticks then you have to move the control sticks in different directions to perform tricks. But it takes a lot of practice to perfect it but once you get good at it there are tons of unique tricks you can do. The way your stats upgrade has changed also in the THUG games and American Wasteland you improved your stats by doing random things like doing two backflips in one combo. In Project 8 it keeps track of the total distance you've grinded and all kinds of other facts. You upgrade your stats by grinding a certain amount of feet or doing a certain amount of special tricks its a very cool idea and works much better then the old system did.

The graphics in Project 8 are great all of the areas look truly next-gen. The characters look awesome also the graphics are just fantastic you can tell a lot of work was put into them. The sound is pretty good the sound effects are great and the voice acting is fantastic but the games soundtrack fails. There are a couple good songs from bands like Primus and Wolfmother but the majority of the soundtrack stinks. Tony Hawk's Project 8 isn't the longest game but with three different ranks for almost every goal there is plenty to do and some of the achievements are pretty hard so those may take you a while to get. All in all Tony Hawk's Project 8 is a great that definitely brought the series out of its slump.

~LOZFAN6537

Tony Hawk's Project 8

Project 8 is exactly what the Tony Hawk series needs. A great game to pull the series out of the slump it’s been in.

good, but could have been better

great game!