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Tony Hawk’s ninth entry is as strong as ever. With three career paths, rigger editor and new gameplay modes, Proving Ground has a lot to like. The appropriately titled Proving Ground—in light of EA’s Skate, the game’s first real competition in years—shows that Tony Hawk has emerged stronger than it ever was. Just when you think that the series is getting stale or that Neversoft ran out of ideas, the developer proves you wrong. The Wii and PS2 versions of the game are surprisingly faithful to their next-generation counterparts and deliver a compelling experience.
Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground lets you choose from three different career options. The first and likely to be the most popular, lets you build your own empire complete with your own merchandise, shoes, and legions of fans. If that doesn’t appeal to you, then you can choose to become a hardcore skater simply focused on nailing the best tricks when they want or a rigger, who focuses on tweaking the environment to pull off insane stunts. The game begins by letting you design your character by changing clothes, faces, decks, etc. It’s not quite as involved as it is on the next-generation consoles but more than enough to design a decent looking character. The game has specific goals depending on your career path, but also includes common goals to bring it all together.
One of Proving Ground’s big innovations is the rigger feature. You can always stop the game and add structures to the game’s maps that you need to pull off your move. The environment really is your canvas and the rigger feature makes it easy to do so. The video editor, one of the biggest features on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, is not included in the PS2 and Wii versions.
In terms of gameplay, Proving Ground adds Nail the Grab and Aggro Kick. Nail the Grab complements the Nail the Trick feature found in last year’s game. The game lets you slow things down and control your feet individually with the analog sticks, which you use to go into Nail the Grab mode. In Nail the Grab, you can do flip your board or do hand transfers. The agro kick lets you hit the shoulder button when you’re about to land to get momentum. If you time it properly, you’ll get a nice boot which lets you continue pulling off insane combos or simply check into a pedestrian. The Wii version of the game is controlled with the Nunchuk and Wiimote in tandem, so you use the analog stick to control your character and use the buttons to pull off the moves. The game does have some motion-sensitive tricks up its sleeve but they don’t feel forced. People who were worried that the Wii version wouldn’t provide a faithful Tony Hawk experience no longer have anything to worry about.
Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground doesn’t include online multiplayer for the Wii or PS2. The game does include two-player split-screen support with familiar Tony Hawk multiplayer modes such as Free Skate, Horse, Graffiti and Trick Attack.
Graphically, the game is comparable to the latter last-generation Tony Hawk games. The character models look similar to the character models in American Wasteland and the environments have about the same level of detail. The animation doesn’t look quite as fluid as it looks on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 but it is good enough to get the game’s look across. The game is a ported version of the next-generation versions so you’ll find a lot of the same environments, characters, etc.
The audio component is very strong. The varied soundtrack includes nearly 60 songs from artists ranging from Nirvana to The Rolling Stones. There is plenty to like in the game for everyone, all of which fits into the Tony Hawk world. The sound effects are as solid as ever, meaning that you’ll hear skating sound different depending on the surface that you’re skating on and all of the bone-crushing bails. The voice acting from the pros is solid, too, and adds authenticity to the game.
Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground does a great job of bringing the Proving Ground experience to the Wii and PS2. The game is a port of the next-generation versions and includes many of the same environments, goals, characters, etc. You won’t find online multiplayer or the video editor here, but the new gameplay additions and Rigger Editor are in full force. For the Wii version in particular, Page 44 Studios has done a great job of molding the Tony Hawk gameplay to the Wiimote and Nunchuk. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Oct 22, 2007
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