Tony Hawk's Project 8 Aussie Review (ign.com)
Australia, November 16, 2006 - Tony Hawk - poster boy for a generation of alternative sports enthusiasts and figurehead of Activision's hugely successful skateboarding sim, is back for another round. Except, something is a little off in the normally stable state of Neversoft and our much-beloved franchise is seemingly distracted and floundering under the strain of next-generational transition. Tony Hawk's Project 8 shows moments of brilliance and then does everything in its power to undermine itself. Despite this, and this is a major point of inner conflict for us, Project 8 definitely isn't a bad game. It just falls notably flat for a series marked by soaring highs and generally tight gameplay.
The core of the game revolves around Hawk seeking out the top eight undiscovered skaters from around the nation in order to form his Project 8 squad. Kind of like, we presume, the ultimate street-cred and bragging rights. After making your way through the character selection and creation process, you are set loose into the world with the humbling world-ranking of 200 and a long journey to the top.
A bit of shameless product placement, in the form of a Nokia N93 mobile phone, becomes your link with the 'story' progression. Via the inherent video and messaging capabilities of the handset, you'll receive updated missions to seek out and regular unlockable videos of pro skaters hitting the tarmac. And occasionally their family jewels.
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Perhaps the biggest change to the fundamental skate mechanics comes in the form of Nail the Trick mode. By clicking in the left and right analogue sticks in, the game zooms into a very cool board-focussed camera viewpoint. The idea, which is amiable, is that the left stick controls the left leg of your skater, and the right stick controls the right one. By shifting the leg in a direction, you can spin or tweak the board at the height of the ollie and land safely by returning the leg to the 'neutral' centre position when the deck is tape-side-up.
This is groundbreaking and brilliant - almost single-handedly lifting this game out of the 'average' category. Not only does the engine handle the depth-of-field effect with panache, but the slow-motion action highlights just how much effort has gone into replicating the subtleties of truck movement, wheel-spin and impact. It looks stellar and importantly, it works.
Plus, you can perform this action at any time, with certain points in the game world featuring automatic Nail the Trick activation - just ollie off the start point and the game will automatically kick in the slow motion.
This automatic activation, speaking of which, is a paramount gameplay feature this time around. Certain environmental objects are tagged with coloured indicators showing 'spot' events - just roll across the point or ollie into the zone begin the challenge. This kind of challenge selection compliments the continuous movement of skateboarding, and it works a lot better than the standard mission selection process. That is, you have to roll over to a character and hit X to activate the mission objectives. This is actually a much harder proposition than it sounds, given that you're probably going to be moving at some speed when you'll suddenly need to pull over and talk to the mission-dealing character. Neversoft has gone some way towards rectifying this, by allowing you to traverse the level on-foot, deck-in-hand.
Fair enough. It's been done in the past, and it still works in Project 8 - but really, in a game about skating, maybe if the mechanics were tighter there wouldn't be a need to break from the action. Plus, humans in a 'realistic' environment look pretty whacked doing double-jumps, Mario-style.
Beyond these additions and tweaks, if you've played any Tony Hawk's title of yesteryear, you'll know what to expect. The game is a level-grind of completing skating tasks, entering tournaments and competitions, facing off against the professionals and unlocking secret areas. There's also a nifty stat tracker included that goes so far as to keep track of your hospital bill from injuries sustained. Nice.
The game has seen fit to scrap the money-system; instead, you accumulate 'stokens' - a currency earned by impressing bystanders with killer tricks or painful stacks. These can be redeemed at the in-game store for all sorts of skating memorabilia - branded clothes, decks and a few special unlockables. Really, it works the same way but the method of earning them feels a little random.
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That isn't to say the game can't be soul-destroyingly difficult - the same old twitch-skill, trial and error gameplay sits at the core of the game; virtually unchanged since the original game. It is awesome fun and still addictive enough to hold your attention for longer than you might think.
The graphics are striking, but rarely beautiful. It's a funny little duality about the Xbox 360 hardware (and nex-gen graphics in general): just because your game is coated in bump-mapped textures and reflective surfaces, with a dash of HDR lighting sprinkled over the top doesn't necessarily equate to gob-smacking. Think 'girl-next-door' pretty; not 'Angelina Jolie' pretty.
The game has framerate issues in open environments - it's not a deal-breaker by any means, but the scent of a rushed release definitely wafts through the game air. Stacking it while in mid-air sends your character sprawling - all well and good, until you fall through a wall, or get stuck in an environmental object. It's just little stuff like this that happens one too many times to ignore.
Where is the course editor? The Xbox 360 has a hard drive and Live access for a reason - why deny gamers a bit of creativity and accommodate the exchange of level designs? This is something the PSOne titles had, for crying out loud. Bring it back.
The list of multiplayer modes is so stock-standard and 'safe' that it borders on boring. However, there is a team-based score attack mode that can be played by up to eight gamers. Before getting into this mode, however, you can skate around a lobby area with the other players, chatting and pulling off tricks. It smacks of Tony Hawk MMO - a sort of gaming cross-breed of Test Drive Unlimited and the lobby area in Saint's Row. We wish they could've fleshed out a persistent skating world with drop-in, drop-out multiplayer challenges. As it stands, the team-score mode works but we'd love a larger-scale version.
We do like how the in-game records update in line with the actual world records achieved in the game. If someone obliterates the longest grind on a particular pipe, the game will automatically display the updated world-record score. That's clever use of the online link.
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We had high hopes for a game that was, according to the company, built from the ground up for the Xbox 360. That is why it pains us to see Project 8 on shelves in the state that it is. There are so many points in the game that make you wish Neversoft had been given another six months to refine things a little more and flesh out the content.
We want areas with better lines and a reduced emphasis on slamming into people to fulfil objectives and get new ones. Or, conversely, separate levels are just fine too - this would ensure there is plenty of focus on each area, and not just a mishmash of locations butted against each other. It worked in Tony Hawks one-through-four - maybe they could salvage it for the single-player and leave the persistent world for online multiplayer.
Closing Comments
This is a game that rewards patience and experimentation, but is let down by a few rush-job decisions. For devotees who worship the Hawk, you'll likely be willing to overlook the shortcomings. The Nail the Trick system is a stunner after all, and there's plenty to be said about a game that has succeeded for this long through dishing up more of the same with a fresh coat of paint. So there you have it: Tony Hawk's Project 8 isn't a revelation, revolution or a new beginning - it's a culmination.
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