Tony Hawk’s Project 8
For Xbox 360.
Verdict: At last, they got it right.
Rating: 4/5
And so my fortnight of skateboarding continues, moving from the cartoon slopes of Downhill Jam on the DS to the 360’s Project 8 in one swift ‘Disco Kickflip’.
Inaugurated back into Tony’s particular control style by Downhill Jam with it’s simplified action, Project 8 ups the complexity and depth by a mile and brings the series back to its traditional home - that of free wheeling around skate friendly environments and attempting to pull off high scoring combo tricks.
Featuring the obligatory character creation (create your own punk, punk!) and online multiplayer, Project 8 takes up the design mantle laid down by THUG and American Wasteland and finally delivers on all the promises they broke.
With a huge, seamlessly streaming town, seemingly designed by a skateboarding architect, you’re in a free roaming nirvana of ramps, half pipes and rails with buildings and roads that open themselves to so much trick potential and exploration.
The mission structure is made up of a multitude of freeform goals and challenges with the over arching aim to be picked for Tony Hawk’s ‘totally awesome’ Project 8 skate team.
Racking up points and climbing a virtual leader board, you can skate around the town looking for things to do - talking to a character with a Ready Brek glow will get you tasks or you can attempt to top scores at trick spots marked out by subtler graffiti.
Aswell as all the long over due refinement is the ‘Nail the trick’ feature - with a click of a stick, the camera zooms towards the board and in slow motion you control each leg of the skater, attempting to create new flip tricks. It’s remarkably satisfying to pull off with the balance exact enough to make it neither easy or hard to do.
With user friendly, streamlined gameplay featuring quick restarts, instant get-ups and clear goals, Project 8 is the most polished and enjoyable title of the series.
And it’s about time too.