After about a decade of the same old stuff, Tony Hawk decided to leave the Pro Skating league to the Underground and then into the American Wasteland. Three games later, Tony is back with two new games, Project 8 and Proving Grounds. For this review, let's focus on Project 8, because I can review Proving Grounds in about a paragraph, it's that bad.
So strap on your pads and grab your deck because we are about to drop in with Tony Hawk's Project 8 on the Xbox 360.
Tony Hawk games haven't really changed much from Pro Skater to American Wasteland. You skate, complete challenges, and rack up ridiculous combos. With Project 8, things have taken a pretty drastic change in many ways while maintaining that "Tony Hawk Seal of Quality".
The story is almost non existant with there really being little to no exposition. The only thing you need to know is that Tony is looking to fill a team of eight elite skaters called Project 8. You assume the role of yourself, more or less, and take it to the streets to up your reputation and rank to essentially skate your way onto Project 8. Unlike previous games, the story is kept very light, which is how I like it to be.
After the opening cutscene, the story pretty much stops. All you do from there on is complete various challenges around the world while opening up more areas in the world to skate at.
Like the other modern day Tony Hawk games, the writing is pretty bad. Project 8 has the strangest idea that it thinks it is actually funny. It really isn't all that funny. Project 8 relys so heavily the lowest brow humor that I doubt it could make someone with the emotional maturity of a twelve year old. I doubt it would even make a 12 year old laugh.
Sound design comes across as a mixed bag. The voice acting is pretty average across the board with only Tony and the pro skaters sounding like they are enjoying themselves. The rest of the characters come off about as stereotypically as an episode of Degrassi. Whether it be the kid in the beaver costume or even My Name is Earl's Jason Lee, everyone just doesn't sound too imaginative.
The soundtrack, as always, is a mixed bag of great punk/rock/hip hop tracks with some other tracks just being unbearable to listen to. Compared to games like Amped 3, Project 8's soundtrack listing is pretty limited and just not as expansive as it could have been. The music is actually somewhat hidden behind all the other sound effects and voices, which makes things hard to hear at times. Even with the music volume all the way up, it is still tough to hear tracks. Overall however, I still really liked Project 8's track listing.
On a graphical standpoint, Project 8 is pretty good looking. The environments are all stereotypical versions of the real thing with places like Suburbia, the Skate Park, and The High School. Evnironments are nice to look at, but it's th characters that you wanna keep your eyes on.
The characters look stylized rather than realistic. Even though the graphics are somewhat realistic, everyone has a cartoony feel whether it be the tough as nails School Cop or the fat out of control Real Estate Woman. Even the skaters have a somewhat cartoony feel, but not as much as the other characters do. The skaters themselves look great, with the exception of Tony Hawk, who kind of looks like a zombie at times.
Gameplay wise, Project 8 has some good ideas bundled together with that same old Tony Hawk formula. You skate around an open world while completing challenges to unlock more parts of said world to skate in.
You still have your 4 buttons to do grabs, flips, ollies, and grinds. The addition of the L Trigger allows players to do front and back flips, which will take time to get used to. Players can control their skater with the left stick while controlling the camera with the right.
Players are able to create their own characters, but this time around things are a bit "limited". You can choose from some template and build off them, but the options for clothing, faces, and everything else is very limited with only a few options to choose from. Unlike previous hawk games where you could essentially create yourself and place him/her into the game.
The big addition to Project 8 is the addition of the "Nail the Trick" option. While skating around, players can either hit specific jumps or click both analog sticks while in the air and time will slow down, allowing players to control their skater's feet with the two analog sticks. Nail the Trick will take players time to get used to but adding it into your combos will prove a great idea.
Project 8 is far from perfect and has plenty of faults. The first thing you'll notice while playing the game is that there is an inconsistancy with the frame rate at times with slow down occuring just when you didn't want it. Frame skipping kicks in when you skate into a new area, which can definitely mess up lines and combos. You can slow down time by holding down the left analog stick, but trying to do this while moving is tough because it is hard to move your skater while holding down the stick. And really, the only time I found it to be useful was during grinds.
The controls themselves are finicky and just not fun to use. The on foot controls have taken a turn for the worse. Unlike the Underground series, Project 8 doesn't do the on foot sections particularly well. To get off your board, players have to hit the right and left bumper at the same time. Problem is that the buttons aren't sensative enough and players have to push hard on both of them to get off your board. This can be tough to do during a combo or while trying to do a caveman to get into a combo.
The analog sticks are the real problems in that they are too either too sensative or not sensative enough. Players will have loads of trouble transfering from rails during grinds because the left stick won't respond well enough to a slight touch. The right analog stick is overly sensative. Players will send the camera into a frantic rage because they wanted to rotate things slightly
The biggest fault with Project 8 is that the challenge is way too steep. I like to consider myself an expert Tony Hawk player and I found the "Sick" challenges to be way to difficult. The difficulty all around is a lot tougher than it previously was. The game keeps its tried and true Trail and Error approach to gameplay, making players play challenges over and over again until they can overcome them, only to make them play challenges again to overcome the steeper difficulties. This will make players frustrated. It was Tony Hawk's Pro Skate 4 that things really started to get frustrating. In fact, it was THPS 4 that I broke one of my PS2 controllers in half in anger at the game (another story for another day). Project 8 can get just as frustrating as the other games, if not even more so. Adding in the slowdown between areas and the problematic frame rate, Project 8 can be devilishly frustrating, so be warned.
At the end of the day, Tony Hawk's Project 8 is strickly for the fans. The challenge is just way too steep for newcomers. Getting into Project 8 is difficult enough, but getting to the top ranks will seem impossible. I don't think i've met a single person who has actually completed all the Sick Challenges.
For newcomers, Pass or Rent
For fans, Rent
For Veterans, Rent or maybe Buy
So strap on your pads and grab your deck because we are about to drop in with Tony Hawk's Project 8 on the Xbox 360.
Tony Hawk games haven't really changed much from Pro Skater to American Wasteland. You skate, complete challenges, and rack up ridiculous combos. With Project 8, things have taken a pretty drastic change in many ways while maintaining that "Tony Hawk Seal of Quality".
The story is almost non existant with there really being little to no exposition. The only thing you need to know is that Tony is looking to fill a team of eight elite skaters called Project 8. You assume the role of yourself, more or less, and take it to the streets to up your reputation and rank to essentially skate your way onto Project 8. Unlike previous games, the story is kept very light, which is how I like it to be.
After the opening cutscene, the story pretty much stops. All you do from there on is complete various challenges around the world while opening up more areas in the world to skate at.
Like the other modern day Tony Hawk games, the writing is pretty bad. Project 8 has the strangest idea that it thinks it is actually funny. It really isn't all that funny. Project 8 relys so heavily the lowest brow humor that I doubt it could make someone with the emotional maturity of a twelve year old. I doubt it would even make a 12 year old laugh.
Sound design comes across as a mixed bag. The voice acting is pretty average across the board with only Tony and the pro skaters sounding like they are enjoying themselves. The rest of the characters come off about as stereotypically as an episode of Degrassi. Whether it be the kid in the beaver costume or even My Name is Earl's Jason Lee, everyone just doesn't sound too imaginative.
The soundtrack, as always, is a mixed bag of great punk/rock/hip hop tracks with some other tracks just being unbearable to listen to. Compared to games like Amped 3, Project 8's soundtrack listing is pretty limited and just not as expansive as it could have been. The music is actually somewhat hidden behind all the other sound effects and voices, which makes things hard to hear at times. Even with the music volume all the way up, it is still tough to hear tracks. Overall however, I still really liked Project 8's track listing.
On a graphical standpoint, Project 8 is pretty good looking. The environments are all stereotypical versions of the real thing with places like Suburbia, the Skate Park, and The High School. Evnironments are nice to look at, but it's th characters that you wanna keep your eyes on.
The characters look stylized rather than realistic. Even though the graphics are somewhat realistic, everyone has a cartoony feel whether it be the tough as nails School Cop or the fat out of control Real Estate Woman. Even the skaters have a somewhat cartoony feel, but not as much as the other characters do. The skaters themselves look great, with the exception of Tony Hawk, who kind of looks like a zombie at times.
Gameplay wise, Project 8 has some good ideas bundled together with that same old Tony Hawk formula. You skate around an open world while completing challenges to unlock more parts of said world to skate in.
You still have your 4 buttons to do grabs, flips, ollies, and grinds. The addition of the L Trigger allows players to do front and back flips, which will take time to get used to. Players can control their skater with the left stick while controlling the camera with the right.
Players are able to create their own characters, but this time around things are a bit "limited". You can choose from some template and build off them, but the options for clothing, faces, and everything else is very limited with only a few options to choose from. Unlike previous hawk games where you could essentially create yourself and place him/her into the game.
The big addition to Project 8 is the addition of the "Nail the Trick" option. While skating around, players can either hit specific jumps or click both analog sticks while in the air and time will slow down, allowing players to control their skater's feet with the two analog sticks. Nail the Trick will take players time to get used to but adding it into your combos will prove a great idea.
Project 8 is far from perfect and has plenty of faults. The first thing you'll notice while playing the game is that there is an inconsistancy with the frame rate at times with slow down occuring just when you didn't want it. Frame skipping kicks in when you skate into a new area, which can definitely mess up lines and combos. You can slow down time by holding down the left analog stick, but trying to do this while moving is tough because it is hard to move your skater while holding down the stick. And really, the only time I found it to be useful was during grinds.
The controls themselves are finicky and just not fun to use. The on foot controls have taken a turn for the worse. Unlike the Underground series, Project 8 doesn't do the on foot sections particularly well. To get off your board, players have to hit the right and left bumper at the same time. Problem is that the buttons aren't sensative enough and players have to push hard on both of them to get off your board. This can be tough to do during a combo or while trying to do a caveman to get into a combo.
The analog sticks are the real problems in that they are too either too sensative or not sensative enough. Players will have loads of trouble transfering from rails during grinds because the left stick won't respond well enough to a slight touch. The right analog stick is overly sensative. Players will send the camera into a frantic rage because they wanted to rotate things slightly
The biggest fault with Project 8 is that the challenge is way too steep. I like to consider myself an expert Tony Hawk player and I found the "Sick" challenges to be way to difficult. The difficulty all around is a lot tougher than it previously was. The game keeps its tried and true Trail and Error approach to gameplay, making players play challenges over and over again until they can overcome them, only to make them play challenges again to overcome the steeper difficulties. This will make players frustrated. It was Tony Hawk's Pro Skate 4 that things really started to get frustrating. In fact, it was THPS 4 that I broke one of my PS2 controllers in half in anger at the game (another story for another day). Project 8 can get just as frustrating as the other games, if not even more so. Adding in the slowdown between areas and the problematic frame rate, Project 8 can be devilishly frustrating, so be warned.
At the end of the day, Tony Hawk's Project 8 is strickly for the fans. The challenge is just way too steep for newcomers. Getting into Project 8 is difficult enough, but getting to the top ranks will seem impossible. I don't think i've met a single person who has actually completed all the Sick Challenges.
For newcomers, Pass or Rent
For fans, Rent
For Veterans, Rent or maybe Buy
