Tony Hawk Project 8

Review from Yug, Yug, Yug, Yug and Yug - Wednesday, 07 February 2007 @ 12:00am

The Tony Hawk games are, I believe, responsible for more gamer related injuries then any other game. I know that’s certainly the case with me. When I first played Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 back in 2000, I remember the first thing I thought was “This skateboarding doesn’t look so hard! And have a listen to all this cool licensed music. Skateboarding is cool. I should skateboard!” And so I did, along with a bunch of other 20 something year olds at my work.

Pain and hardship ensured, and after about the hundredth time I had fallen on my ass after attempting a simple ollie, I decided to give up and stick to virtual skateboarding, not the real thing.

It did, however, give me a much better appreciation and understanding of the game. While before I had tended to mash buttons in between manuals to try and achieve high scores, now I actually knew what kind of tricks I was doing, and in particular which ones seemed reasonable and which ones were … well … impossible.

I tell you this story because I assume that most of you have, at some point in time, played a Tony Hawk game. They are as regular a franchise as any EA sports game, even though their numbering system is getting a bit more confusing (1,2,3,4,UG,UG2,AW,P8).

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Unlike a lot of other sports games, you don’t really need to know that much about skating to enjoy the game. It’s handy, but not essential. I’m generalising this to the entire Tony Hawk series as well, because it really hasn’t fundamentally changed all that much. The level objectives change, the graphics get better, and the trick list gets fancier, but if you go back and play the very first Tony Hawk game, the only think you’ll really notice is that you don’t have to be on speed to be able to pull off combos and tricks.

Let me stop reminiscing and move into the present, bringing us to the 8th game in the series, cleverly titled Project 8. The Project 8 being the top 8 skaters handpicked by Tony Hawk himself to join his elite team of super duper skaters. You start the game at 200th, and have to work your way up by completing tasks, nailing tricks, and generally doing stuff around the large and conveniently set-up city.

If you’ve played every game in the series up to this point then you might be disappointed to know that the story isn’t featured as heavily in this game as it has been in previous ones. It’s a freer roaming, move at your own pace kind of game play, and new areas unlock as your rank increases. Personally, I played the series up to Tony Hawk Underground, and got a bit tired of the same old game mechanics packaged in a ‘Jackass’ style narrative. Apparently in this version, you loose the ability to hit people over the head with your skateboard. I can live with that. In fact, I PREFER a skating game where you don’t have that feature.

I always did prefer Rodney Mullins to Bam Margera anyway.

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So what IS new in Project 8? First – my favourite – the ‘nail a trick’ mode, where when you are in mid air, you click in the two joysticks on the gamepad, and the camera zooms in to a sideways focus on your board while slowing everything down, matrix style. You can then create your own trick, by moving the left and right joystick in the direction you want to kick the board with your feet. While it does allow you to some completely impossible moves, it is without a doubt one of the best and most addictive new features to be put into a Tony Hawk game. Other games added tricks, this one practically ads a new mini game.

The levels in Project 8 are huge, open environments, with lots of areas that need to be unlocked. All the classics are here, from the skate park to the high school, the most impressive part being that you can skate between them all with no loading screens of any sort. Please note though, that this is not the case on the original Xbox version of the game. In fact, while I’m at it, you should know that the difference between the new generation and old generation versions of this game is huge – they were even made by different developers. Don’t go reading this review expecting it to be accurate for the Xbox or PS2 version of the game.

That brings us nicely to the other reason to pick up the new Birdman game – the graphics. This isn’t some half assed port of an old generation game to the 360 (I’m looking at you American Wasteland, even if you were cheap and bundled with Gun). This is definitely a next generation Tony Hawk game, from the textures on the clothes to the amazing draw distance. The movements on the character models now is amazing, the introduction video alone shows how fluid and naturally ‘dirty’ the tricks themselves are now. My only complaint with the graphical upgrade is that while playing I had a lot of stuttering, where the frame rate would drop significantly. For a game that goes this fast and requires much more co-ordination to be able to pull off lines of tricks, that can get in the way. And unfortunately, alot of the time it does.

Since I didn’t get into the underground/wasteland games, I may have missed out on some of the new tricks and fancy moves in Project 8, such as Rodney Mullen’s style street tricks, grinding to a stop, and wall plants. They’re all new to me, and as such were welcome additions, especially the street tricks.

Although you won’t be playing the game as any of your skater heroes, you will meet most of the Tony Hawk regulars throughout the game, as they give you new goals, teach you new tricks, and compete against you. Although the skaters are well represented, I never expected a surprise appearance by Jason Lee (of ‘My name is Earl’ fame), who sticks with you for most of the game. Cool :)

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There are a lot of other aspects to Project 8 that you can delve into more if you like, such as the create-a-skater, the many areas around the level where you have to grind/manual/jump for as long as you can along a set path, purposely stacking it to reach high ‘hospital bill’ scores, collecting ‘stoakens’ that allow you to purchase more clothes and boards… Actually, the stoakens are a bit piss weak to be honest; you get them by doing impressive tricks near people who see you pull them off. Or you knock other skaters off their boards. It just felt a bit tacked on, plus the unlockables aren’t as exciting as in previous versions of the game.

The Xbox 360 has a strong online component that strangely the Playstation 3 version is apparently missing. Online play now supports up to 8 players, and has a strong scoreboard system that should challenge anyone looking to really push the limits of their abilities. The best part of the online component though is a new game called ‘walls’, where each skater has a trail behind them that other skaters can’t bump into otherwise they die. It’s like playing ‘snake’ on your mobile phone, but with heaps of other people and just slightly better graphics.

If you focus entirely on reaching the Top 8, depending on your skill you’ll get there in about 10 hours of solid gameplay I recon. That’s still leaving heaps of challenges around the city for you to do though. Even then, once you DO reach the top 8, to get to Number 1 you have to get even better scores on your previously completed tricks. There’s a lot of gameplay here, and plenty of replayability, and the more you play and practice, the better and smoother your skills will be.

Just like skating in real life.

Or so I thought. See, after reaching the Top 8, I decided to go out and see if my new virtual skills would carry over into the real world. I got a group of other 20 something mates together, and we went to our local skate park to bust out some moves.

Mind you, we went at night. God knows I didn’t want to get in the way of some 12 year old grommet who tries to kick flip over me when I fall over after just trying to stand on my board again. I can take embarrassment and humiliation, but I’m getting too old to believe I’m invincible anymore, and I didn’t want to get hit over the head with a skateboard after explaining to someone that that trick isn’t in the latest Tony Hawk game.


After realising I’d probably drunk away the brain cells that remembered how to kick flip, I attempted and failed most of the time to land a single ollie. An ollie is a single tap on the A button in the game, but it’s practically impossible for a 25 year old who spends all day in front of a computer to do it in real life it seems. Rolling around the park on the other hand came back naturally, and by the end of the night I was dropping into bowls, grinding coping, and rocking the board to fakie on some of the lips. The nail-a-trick mode translated to real life only by how often I stacked it in the game relating to how much I stacked it at the park. Always.

In the end, I walked away bruised and slightly bleeding (I’m hardkore – thanks Shauno), but full of energy and convinced that I’ll come back again next week to try and up my skating skills. Just like I did 6 years ago after playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 … geezus, have I learnt nothing??

Summary

This is the REAL next generation Tony Hawk game, and while it may have some frame rate issues, it's without a doubt my favorite game in the series since THPS2. Simple to play and get into, it feels like a pure return to the fundamental gameplay we all know and love. The new tricks and graphics help of course ;)

Pros

New fancy schmancy graphics, nail-a-trick mode, no jackass style storyline, open ended seamless city, great soundtrack, new tricks, fun online play, Jason Lee.

Cons

Frame rate problems, need to be on drugs to make some of the combos, VERY different versions between systems, you won't be a better skater in real life just because you played this game.