Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Old-school"

Tony Hawks Proving Ground is actually the 9th game in the Tony Hawk series, theres not much changes here. However the Tony Hawk games begang with kinda much pick a pro, play through carrier mode and then play it through with any other playable character to unlock levels and secret characters. Since Underground (wich is my favorite in the series) they started to make it more focused on just you, that means your created skater.

Proving Ground is very different and almost just like Project 8. You start out by your living in inner city philly and kinda much from their choose a life style. The life styles are carrier, there your pretty much taking your own photos, recording your videos and be rich. Then the rigger life style, there you placing out pieces in the world to skate around on, wich is pretty boring cause the menu doesnt work out pretty well because of the rigger menu wich is very bad organised because of its very few things you can build and the place is kinda much being more ugly if you are placing out pieces here and there.

Then the hardcore lifestyle there you pretty much just skating for fun, and knock down people that comes in your way, your acting like a THUG. The carrier lifestyle is probably the best one but some of the things there is pretty bad organised too. However, as i said you start out in inner city philly and kinda much just doing missions to unlock more places in the world wich you can do pretty quick actually. Your skating around in Philly, Washington and Baltimore. In Project 8 it was no long shortcuts, just a big world without any loading screens, but here it is a short place to skate in while the game loads up the next area.

The areas you skate in isnt much creative or fun, i mean here you just skate around in city parts, no fun schools or fun parks. And it starts raining everytime you play for 10 minutes without pressing the start button. The games mission is pretty much that you meat a few pros and then they learn you something new, and then you just doing the thing and the mission is over. Then theres like 5 parts of each episode, for example Bob Burnquist and Ryan Schecklers episode is about to beat up Eric Sparrow again and you are doing that in different locations in the citys.

However, the maybe best thing i can say about this game is the graphics wich is very beautiful and that the jurk Eric Sparrow from Tony Hawks Underground 1 & 2 is back as i said before. Most of the missions in the game arent well made. For example in the carrier missions, while napping your own photos your gonna at the same time as doing a cool trick, press the right thumbstick. Its get kinda much of a nightmare after a while. And the rigger missions is always the same, i mean it is always get from point A to point B to point C and then back again without touching the ground. They are both hard and boring.

In the hardcore episodes your just doing the same thing, beating up THUG:s. Anyway another new thing with the game is the video editor. Anytime you skating around you can go to the pause menu and start recording your own videos and then send them to volcom and see how much score you get, you can also download other videos. Then it is also that in Project 8 you could only nail your own flip tricks but now you can nail your own grab tricks and manuals, it doesnt work as well as nailing your flip.

However the soundtrack in Proving Ground is really amazing, it is always amazing in Tony Hawk games and this time it is from bands like The Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Bad Brains, Angels And Airwaves and much more. However the game still has online for up to 8 players, you can skate around the world or in one area online. Or you can also skate in your own skate lounge. You can play the standard Tony Hawk games online like combo mambo, trick attack and graffiti. The people who is playing are really noobs however, cause they all are new to the series.

However the Skate Lounge is your kinda much home, its like your own skate park there you can build all from beds to ramps. It is kinda fun to create your own lounge and then play on it online. Tony Hawks Proving Ground is a pretty big dissapointment, but it is still fun to just do combos and score million of points.