When one thinks of extreme sporting games, or in particular skating games, the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series is bound to come up. As one of the originators of the genre, the first Tony Hawk game appeared back in 1999 to mass critical approval. Its sequel, released a year later, has been revered as one of the best games ever released.

Fast forward to 2007 and we are presented with Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground. This is already the second Tony Hawk title to appear on the PS3 and Xbox 360 and is effectively Tony Hawk 9 if you’re counting. Developer Neversoft has been pumping these out once a year for the past nine years and one has to wonder how much more they can get out of the series. EA has recently released its own game, simply titled Skate, which provides a completely different take on the genre and for the first time provides the Tony Hawk series with some real competition. This year there are some new features and some adjustments made from Tony Hawk Project 8, but just how different is Proving Ground from last year’s iteration?

Gameplay and Controls 

When you first boot up the game you are presented with the game’s rather robust character customization mode. You can create some off the wall characters; how does a built African American, with white contacts, old school glasses, headphones and an orange emo haircut sound? With even more clothing options and variety you can pretty much make the character you want, maybe even the one you want to be on the inside. Once you’ve created your freaky looking character, its time to get your skate on, except there is more of “story” this time around. Your character is initially very weak in the core skating skills and is missing just about all the major innovations that have been implemented in the series over the past few years. There is no Nail the Trick mode from the off; you’ll have to learn them this time around. This is a good thing, as newcomers to the series will learn the basics. By skating around the starter city you will encounter various pro skaters who present you with basic tasks, which let you unlock some of the more advanced features of the game. You will quickly unlock the Nail the Trick feature, the new Nail the Manual and Grab, the Agro Kick and more. It does seem kind of bothersome at first that you can’t just get right to the skating, but they show you the ropes and help you get started.