Tony Hawk's Proving Ground - First Impressions
I've got to say, it was a lot of fun. I can't wait to get my own copy and play through it. I played and liked the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games, but then there was this time where the games got really Bam Margera heavy, and goofy. I felt like I spent more time throwing tomatoes and playing as some weird mean kid in a wheelchair or a donkey costume, than I did just enjoying the skating. Tony Hawk's Project 8 brought a lot of the reality of skateboarding back into the Tony Hawk series, and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground nails that to the ground. It feels very much like the original Pro Skater games as far as the fun factor, but so open and fluid that you almost feel more like you're just having fun in another place as another person, than like you're playing a game.
Creating a Skater in Tony Hawk's Proving Ground
That might be an exaggeration, but let me spell it out for you. In Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, you start out making your skater. You can modify him a lot - not as much as in, say, Morrowind, but plenty enough for a game like this. For example, you can pick from over 10 faces, then change their color. To green, even, if you want. Another guy at the show yesterday made the Incredible Hulk. For me, I just pushed the randomizer and got a guy that was good enough for me.So you have your skater, and you start out the game. You start out in Philadelphia, and the city is huge. There are two more cities in the game, Baltimore and DC, and you can skate to them later if you want, after you unlock them. But that all happens through the flow of the game.
At the beginning, you are presented with 3 friends who represent the 3 different types of skater the game defines. Now, the purpose of this isn't to force you into one of three stereotypes - instead, you can do one for a while, then another, dabble back in the first one, and totally ignore one if you want. The three directions are career skating, being a hardcore skater, or what they call a rigger skater.
- The career skater is your Tony Hawk, your Ryan Sheckler, or your Bob Burnquist. These guys film videos and compete in contests. They like to get paid. In the game, you do exactly these things as a career skater, and you learn to do some slow motion tricks, which are a lot of fun.
- The hardcore skater likes skating whatever they feel like, and define the "extreme" part of skateboarding culture, though they would likely want to punch you for saying that. Hardcore skaters skate for the fun of skating, not for money. In the game, hardcore skaters learn to hit people, how to ride bowls, and how to "aggro kick" (a new feature, I'll talk about it later).
- Rigger skaters are guys who want to do something new and, likely, weird. These guys build strange things and then skate them. In the game, rigging is setting up ramps and rails all over the city, and getting to hard-to-get-to places.
And that's how the pros fit into the game. You talk to a pro and they teach you how to do something. It's very fluid, and makes more sense than in any of the previous games. Plus, when you meet the pros, you get to watch a little short video clip of them, and so if you aren't really into skating, you at least have an idea of what this person is like who you are talking to in the game. Most of the pros looked pretty good - but sometimes a little creepy. Tony Hawk's eyes were a little big and wierd. Things like that. Uncanny Valley stuff. But, the graphics are the best I've seen in a Tony Hawk game yet, and I liked them.
Speaking of Tony Hawk, he shows up in the game to show you stuff you can do besides following one of the three paths. In all of the towns there are places that you can do different kinds of challenges, with different difficulties, and you can spend all of your time improving your street riding like that if you want. It's kind of funny that Tony Hawk is talking to you about street riding, just because that's not what he's famous for, but it does well in blending why a guy like him is talking to you at all. He's just taken an interest in you. What a nice guy!
And his interest will turn out to be well founded if you keep playing, because as you play you will eventually be approached by sponsors, and you can rise to Am status, and eventually Pro, then all the way to having your own team that you get to hand pick from the pros you have met along the way! And the sponsors you get are determined by what kind of skating you do - hardcore versus career. I'm not sure who a rigger sponsor would be ... maybe Team Pain? Skate ramp or park builders? Who knows! Play it and see!
Tony Hawk's Proving Ground Gameplay
The controls are exactly like in Tony Hawk's Project 8, but with some added skills. But, if you've played the last couple of games at all, the controls should be pretty intuitive.Proving Ground has the Nail-the-Trick controls that project 8 introduced, where you can go into slow motion and zoom in on your board, and do sweet tricks with it. But, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground adds a couple of new similar features - Nail-the-Grab and Nail-the-Manual.
