Tony Hawk's Project 8

• Platform: Xbox 360, Xbox, Playstation 2, Sony PSP, Playstation 3
• Published by: Activision
• Developed by: Neversoft
• Release Date: Nov 17, 2006
• Genre: Sports
• Multiplayer: Yes
• Online: Yes

 

Tony Hawk's Project 8 Preview

-- October 18, 2006 by: Chris Remo

Tony Hawk. The guy has likely become as well known in the video game world as he has in the skateboarding world, thanks to Neversoft's bestselling yearly skateboarding series. Unfortunately for many long time fans of the series, this one included, the games have gotten a bit off track over the years as, presumably, Neversoft has attempted to find new ways to keep the series from getting stale. Now, the studio is using the current console generation change as a way to reevaluate the franchise and, in many ways, take a few steps back. Tony Hawk's Project 8, currently in the works for PlayStation 2, Xbox, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PSP, is something of a return to the series' roots of focusing on tricks and skating rather than a continually more overblown cast of characters and mission lineup. I recently had the opportunity to check out the single-player component of the game on PlayStation 3 and a multiplayer mode on Xbox 360.

Single-player

"In the last few years, the linear narrative was a bit restrictive," explained a Neversoft designer, speaking on the Underground and American Wasteland iterations of the Tony Hawk franchise. "[Now] we have less story to deliver more gameplay."

Tony Hawk's Project 8, fittingly the eighth main entry game to bear the Tony Hawk name, wisely picks up where Neversoft left off with 2002's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4. That game explored a mission based structure with bystanders who would give out goals when addressed, but had not yet become what almost seemed like self-parody with the insane plotlines and mission objectives of the following games. The story this time is that Tony Hawk has come to the player's small town to find the top eight amateur skaters, and the goal of the game is of course to become one among that group. According to Neversoft and Activision, this will be no mean feat. Players will rise in rank by becoming more proficient at tricks and scoring higher on the game's challenges, and apparently it's tough even to make it to the top 50. Reaching the top eight after which the game is named will require even more dedication, while becoming number one should demonstrate complete Tony Hawk mastery.

When starting a new game, players can opt to use the series' trademark Create-a-Skater option, then jump into career mode. Then, as in other Tony games, player objectives will be delivered via pedestrians and cameos from real world pro skaters. The game is loaded up with approximately 200 separate goals, each of which has three skill levels: am (amateur), pro, and sick. Achieving the sick ranking on the goals is of course the most challenging. In a nice touch, the Xbox 360 version of the game features individual online leaderboards for most, if not all, of the game's goals, allowing you to see how you stack up to the world champions in a wide variety of Tony skills. Among the types of challenges offered in the game are what Neversoft calls "ambient goals." These are trick lines scattered throughout the world that the player can uncover, giving players more ways to complete goals while simply exploring. These grind-heavy lines also feature their own am/pro/sick levels, demanding more from the player to achieve a higher rating.

Skating around and doing tricks will also boost your stats in those areas, so if you do lots of ollies, you'll become better at them in game. This is not a new feature to the series, but it has been expanded and deepened this time around, with a full report of all your stats and how much progress you need to level up in a given area.

One of the most welcome components of the single-player game for old school Tony Hawk fans will be the implementation of classic mode directly into the main game itself. Players can talk to certain goal pedestrians that open up what is essentially a separate classic mode within the current game area. This walls off the open world level to become more in line with a classic Tony Hawk level, and brings up a variety of classic goals, such as collecting the floating letters in the word COMBO or SKATE within a single trick, getting a high combo score, achieving a total high score (or a pro or sick score, for that matter), one-off goals such as smashing a certain number of pumpkins in a given time frame, and so on. You'll also be able to find hidden "secret tapes," presumably unlocking live action videos, though this time around they've gotten with the times and morphed into secret discs.

For the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, Neversoft has completely revamped the graphics engine to take advantage of the added power, a far cry from the token upgrade given to the Xbox 360 version of last year's Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. This time around, the game's geometry and textures have been significantly improved, and the game feels much more like something designed for next-gen consoles. Devout enthusiasts of one platform or the other are likely to compare screenshots of every announced multiplatform game, but Project 8 looks pretty comparable on both systems. There's also been some nice attention paid to sound design, with a range of satisfying skating sounds depending on the ground surface. More fundamental than this, however, is the revamp to the game's feel and controls (which will presumably affect the current-gen versions as well). With the renewed emphasis on skating above all else, the game feels tighter and a little less forgiving. Based on the playtime I've had, it seems that the game is putting much more emphasis on doing diverse and interesting tricks rather than encouraging the player to abuse a few incredibly lucrative maneuvers repeatedly for massive trick scores.

The biggest discrete change to controls is the addition of the new Nail the Trick mode. At any time while airborne, the player can click both analog sticks simultaneously to active a slow motion on-the-fly trick control system. The camera pans around and zooms in on the skater model's legs and board, and by using the two analog sticks the player can intricately direct the character's control over his board. If you don't have the board positioned squarely under the skater's feet by the time the trick lands, you'll bail. It's an entertaining mechanic that should allow players to create some impressive visual displays. Some of the Neversoft developers who are well practiced with the system showed off their ability to create incredibly complex tricks, while as a newcomer I was happy to get a few flips in there and land it.

Multiplayer

I was able to check out multiplayer mode new to the series, entitled simply Walls. Walls can almost be described as Tron on skateboards. As players skate around the level, they emit color-coded trails behind them. When a player runs into your trail, he or she is out and you get a point. The more points you're earning on your current combo, the longer your trail can become.

The Xbox 360 version of Project 8 is fully online-enabled over Live. In addition to Walls, it features multiplayer modes from past Tony games, as well as the aforementioned leaderboard system corresponding to most of the game's single-player challenges. Multiplayer games will support up to eight players. Unfortunately, the only multiplayer option available in the PlayStation 3 version of the game is a two player split screen mode. For a variety of reasons including PS3 development hardware late in the game, Neversoft will be unable to get the game up and running on PS3's online service by the time the game ships. This is all the more notable considering Neversoft's Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 was the first game to feature online play on PS2, a full year before Xbox Live or any of Sony's own PS2 games and even before Sony offered an official network adapter.

So in Conclusion

It's frequently tough to get hugely excited about any particular iteration of a yearly franchise, particularly when it's creeping up on a decade's worth of games. That said, Project 8 is by all measures shaping up to be the most noteworthy main series Tony Hawk game in the last few years. It seems as though Neversoft is making a conscious decision to continue adding new features while not getting too carried away with some of the extraneous and distracting elements that have afflicted recent entries to the franchise. As a Tony fan dating back to Pro Skater on the PlayStation and Pro Skater 2 on the Dreamcast who hasn't owned a home console entry in the series since Pro Skater 4 on PS2, this is looking like a pretty sure bet.

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