Tony Hawks Project 8
December 24,2006 - Let’s start with the obvious: the game world is gorgeous and monstrously sized. No more half-fulfilled promises like in American Wasteland. What Project 8 offers (once you unlock all the areas) is a seamless city and a (mostly) dependable frame-rate, with no load times or long corridors to skate through. In most ways, this game will give you everything you’ve always felt was necessary in a skate simulator: A wide open city with lots of ramps, rails, benches, steps, pools and concrete waiting to be explored.

The premise of Project 8 is straightforward enough: Tony Hawk is gathering the cream of the crop from your city, and as an aspiring skateboarding youth, you want to be in his final eight. Thankfully, the Jackass antics have all but vanished from the game, and career mode is actually about you again.

Perhaps it’s because this city is a fictional one that Neversoft didn’t bother with gimmicky tourist attractions. Each area of the city has so many natural lines in it you’ll be overwhelmed. You can literally go for hours ignoring the challenges and just skate—because it feels that damn good. There’s a genuine emphasis on realism that wasn’t present in prior entries. Your skater has real weight on his board, and you’ll be completely blown away by the detail the first time you see the trucks of your skateboard gnashing against a smooth rail.

It’s the little things that count—your skater’s feet move independently from his board, which is separate from the trucks, and when you’re trying to maintain balance while pulling a manual, you’ll want to watch as your skater wobbles and tries to regain composure. Gone are the days of staring expectantly at that cruel little balance meter, trying to figure out if you’re going to bail. Now, you can see your skater inclining forward, and know immediately to pull back on the stick. The on-the-board physics really bring the game to a whole new level.

Clicking in both analog sticks in the air will initiate “nail the trick.” It’s during this time that the magic happens. The camera zooms in on your feet, and the background blurs. Each analog stick will coordinate respectively to your foot on screen, allowing you to flip, kick, and spin your board by pressing any direction on either stick. You then have to watch the rotations of your board and note whether the grip tape or trucks are under your feet—you can only land and “nail” the trick if you finish your combo string with the grip tape beneath your shoes. It’s a satisfying thing to branch into an eight-trick, slow-motion combination and stomp the landing.

What the new nail the trick feature implements is not only an ingenious do-it-yourself trick system, but cinematic slow-mo complete with saturated bloom lighting. So when you feel like really blowing your pals away, you can click in the left analog stick and combo any trick in bullet time. Trust us, it’s addictive. While it may seem to be a complete hamper on the trademark fast and thrash play, it comes as a sweet relief in the middle of an insanely long combo string to know you can slow things down for a bit.

Rather than a game-wide difficulty setting, most of the abundant challenges in the game break into categories of amateur, pro, and sick. The AM level is for the newcomers, pro is for anyone who’s played a Tony Hawk game before, and sick is for the truly hardcore and devoted. If you’re going for sick, expect to retry a lot, with requirements like a perfect clean landing or a seven-twenty spin added on to the previous difficulty. You can beat these challenges and the game on any level, but the endings vary depending on what rank you finish with. Basically, if you want to become Mr. Hawk’s number one disciple, you’ve got to beat the challenges on sick.

Your career consists of skate competitions, bail goals, classic challenges, chalk challenges, and pro challenges. By far, we had the most fun with the pro challenges, just because it’s great to see P-Rod voicing his own mo-capped virtual self and daring you to keep up with him. During skate comps you’ll have to constantly keep the crowd enthralled and rack up the necessary score to complete the goal at one of the three levels. Bail goals are exactly what they sound like—rag doll physics, long downhill slopes, and a bailing skater trying to knock down bowling pins. Chalk challenges pop up everywhere, requiring you to grind a predetermined line or pull off a vert trick at a certain height to complete them.

There are a few fun nuggets to unlock and enjoy, like the in-depth tutorial for true newcomers, and videos of pro skaters and mo-cap sessions. The online play is basically what you expect, with the addition of a cool new game called “walls,” where every skater leaves a trail of light behind them. Basically, if you bash into another skater’s light trail, you lose. The leaderboards in the 360 version are yet another advantage over the Playstation 3. Ultimately, the Xbox 360 is the version to own.

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