Ground to Dust
Proving Ground is the deepest, lengthiest Tony Hawk yet. So why does it feel so empty?
Published: November 4, 2007
Pretend for a second that the Tony Hawk series is still the only option if you want to play a skateboarding game. Standing on its own merits, has the series truly moved into next-gen, or is it merely a new coat of paint? Sure, the online is integrated in a fairly seamless way, allowing you to skate around in single-player and then with a press of a button, see other people playing near you and seamlessly transition into playing any number of game types that have become staples of the series since it first went online with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3.
You've got your trick attack and your graffiti, and of course some of the newer modes -- including all of the new slo-mo Nail-the-Manual and Nail-the-Grab, and the career mode is insanely deep, offering three different paths to take that can be switched between. Add to that all of the Classic Mode challenges, the spot challenges for jumps and grinds and manuals and height and you've got a ton of stuff to play around with.
Now recall that this is the first year the series actually has some serious competition, and ignoring the approaches to skating games, take a look at how Tony Hawk stacks up in terms of animation, physics, control. Animation, in particular, is where Proving Ground starts to reveal its last-gen roots, with tons of popping form one move to the next (particularly on grinds), made even more evident when you look at things with the game's new built-in video editor. The transitions are sloppy, and there's the inescapable feeling that despite all the fancy new shaders and higher resolution, the PS one game is still poking through.
That in and of itself isn't a bad thing, as the first Pro Skater literally created an entire genre and elevated Neversoft to god-like status, but the days when a new Tony Hawk game would cause people to salivate in anticipation are long gone, the relentless year-on-year release schedule slowly wearing down the excitement of seeing something new. I understand that Activision wants to milk their license for all it's worth; the series has been a cash cow for almost a decade, but -- and this is incredibly important, so if higher-ups at Activision are actually reading this, please pay attention -- the soul of the games, the fun and the innovation and the excitement is slowly being driven out by an impossible development cycle.
That Neversoft has managed to hold out this long and continued to add new features to each successive game is damned impressive, but the series needs a break. A serious break where the developers can go back to the drawing board and make a proper next-gen game not just in resolution or textures, but in overall feel, in physics, in animation, in controls. I love that I can pick up a controller and instantly bust out a massive combo string with the games, but for nine games now, I've been bonelessing into kickflips off of ever surface because I know it gives me just a little more height. I don't even think about doing reverts to manuals now, it just happens automatically.
These things are a core part of gaming now, but rather than driving them into the ground, we should leave the older mechanics behind and give Neversoft the chance to prove they can deliver something that completely changes the landscape of games because, frankly, other developers are doing that right now. There, soapbox tirade and comparisons to other skating games over. What say I actually, y'know review the game, hmmm?
I mentioned it before, but this really is something of an opus for Neversoft. Assuming some kind of miracle happens and this is the last of the "old" Tony Hawk games, it stands as the single greatest value for your gaming dollar the series has ever offered. The fact that this review took as long as it did had as much to do with conflicting feelings that the series had seriously lost its mojo in light of newfound competition as it does with the sheer amount of stuff you can do in the game. Yes, there's a career path, and we've talked it up a few times now, allowing you to chart your course as a pro skater, a "doing just to skate" hardcore route and a rigger (someone who literally builds their own lines and things to trick off of when the real world doesn't offer anything), all of it is wrapped around a basic storyline that sees you as a local Philly/D.C./Baltimore player-created skater becoming the next big thing just like the last few Hawk games, but this is really just a means to get you introduced to the game's mechanics slowly.
You've got your trick attack and your graffiti, and of course some of the newer modes -- including all of the new slo-mo Nail-the-Manual and Nail-the-Grab, and the career mode is insanely deep, offering three different paths to take that can be switched between. Add to that all of the Classic Mode challenges, the spot challenges for jumps and grinds and manuals and height and you've got a ton of stuff to play around with.
Now recall that this is the first year the series actually has some serious competition, and ignoring the approaches to skating games, take a look at how Tony Hawk stacks up in terms of animation, physics, control. Animation, in particular, is where Proving Ground starts to reveal its last-gen roots, with tons of popping form one move to the next (particularly on grinds), made even more evident when you look at things with the game's new built-in video editor. The transitions are sloppy, and there's the inescapable feeling that despite all the fancy new shaders and higher resolution, the PS one game is still poking through.
That in and of itself isn't a bad thing, as the first Pro Skater literally created an entire genre and elevated Neversoft to god-like status, but the days when a new Tony Hawk game would cause people to salivate in anticipation are long gone, the relentless year-on-year release schedule slowly wearing down the excitement of seeing something new. I understand that Activision wants to milk their license for all it's worth; the series has been a cash cow for almost a decade, but -- and this is incredibly important, so if higher-ups at Activision are actually reading this, please pay attention -- the soul of the games, the fun and the innovation and the excitement is slowly being driven out by an impossible development cycle.
That Neversoft has managed to hold out this long and continued to add new features to each successive game is damned impressive, but the series needs a break. A serious break where the developers can go back to the drawing board and make a proper next-gen game not just in resolution or textures, but in overall feel, in physics, in animation, in controls. I love that I can pick up a controller and instantly bust out a massive combo string with the games, but for nine games now, I've been bonelessing into kickflips off of ever surface because I know it gives me just a little more height. I don't even think about doing reverts to manuals now, it just happens automatically.
These things are a core part of gaming now, but rather than driving them into the ground, we should leave the older mechanics behind and give Neversoft the chance to prove they can deliver something that completely changes the landscape of games because, frankly, other developers are doing that right now. There, soapbox tirade and comparisons to other skating games over. What say I actually, y'know review the game, hmmm?
I mentioned it before, but this really is something of an opus for Neversoft. Assuming some kind of miracle happens and this is the last of the "old" Tony Hawk games, it stands as the single greatest value for your gaming dollar the series has ever offered. The fact that this review took as long as it did had as much to do with conflicting feelings that the series had seriously lost its mojo in light of newfound competition as it does with the sheer amount of stuff you can do in the game. Yes, there's a career path, and we've talked it up a few times now, allowing you to chart your course as a pro skater, a "doing just to skate" hardcore route and a rigger (someone who literally builds their own lines and things to trick off of when the real world doesn't offer anything), all of it is wrapped around a basic storyline that sees you as a local Philly/D.C./Baltimore player-created skater becoming the next big thing just like the last few Hawk games, but this is really just a means to get you introduced to the game's mechanics slowly.