Pick Your Path in Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, the latest step in Tony Hawk's long-running video game career.
WATCH PROVING GROUND VIDEOS
by YVG Staff
The Tony Hawk games have slowly been evolving beyond simple point-gathering modes and even away from straightforward storylines. Options are the new name of the game, and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground will have three distinct paths that players can tackle: Career, Hardcore and Rigger.
Some basics are common to each path: you'll interact with skate stars and other personalities to obtain goals and objectives. Fulfill these to unlock skills and new skate areas. Each path comes with specific skills, which can be used to open new locations within the game world. Good luck getting to the Air and Space museum without following the Rigger's path to get the Breaking and Entering skill, for example. You won't be able to unlock everything in one run, however, since you'll eventually have to choose a dominant path.
The paths aren't entirely mutually exclusive, though, and serious players will want to play through a few times to delve deep into all three pseudo-storylines to get the most out of the game. We've compiled a rundown of what you can expect from each path, highlighting skills and some of the action that makes each one different from the next.
Career
This is where the glory-hungry skaters end up. If you're the type who likes sponsors and media attention, Career is the place to start...or maybe the path to save for last. If you're a career skater you'll look more stylish than other players and you'll have access to the best trick systems.
This track is where players will get access to some of the game's newest and most crucial mechanics. The three dominant skills are Nail the Trick, which returns from Project 8, and Nail the Grab and Nail the Manual, the two new systems that build on NTT to offer a lot more customized ways to maneuver.
All three systems offer a slow-motion system for improvising tricks as you sail through the air. (Or, in the case of Nail The Manual, as you nose or tail along the pavement.) By clicking the analog sticks, you can directly manipulate your feet (for Nail The Trick) and hands (in Nail The Grab) and segue from one trick to another with sexy touches like finger flips. The timing is easier than in Project 8, meaning you're more likely to land the sweet moves.
Fully upgrading each system (three levels are available per skill, with skill points earned for completing street challengers) will be key to both earning the best swag and taking down returning Tony Hawk antagonist Eric Sparrow, against whom you'll compete in a tri-city grudge match.
Hardcore
These skaters live up to their name. They'll skate anything, anywhere, the tougher and dirtier the better. Getting crazed air isn't as important as seeking out the wildest, most difficult gaps on the street. You won't see a hardcore skater decked out with logos; these players look leaner and meaner than the famous kids.
The three skills that define the Hardcore crowd are Agro Kick, Skate Check and Bowl Skating. Agro Kick is an essential skill for explorers: it's a multi-tap move that you can execute in a series to build up enough speed to sail over a massive gap. Skate Check offers some goofy ragdoll physics as you push sucka pedestrians and other skaters out of your way.
Bowl Skating is a subtle addition to the game, but one that'll prove key to players who want to emulate classic longboard and Z-Boys moves. As we've seen time and again, anyone with a deck and set of trucks can skate a drained pool in the Tony Hawk games, but Bowl Skating will allow for more speedy and grandiose turns in the bowl, as well as let you get into tough moves like the slash grind, which is the toughest way to sail across the coping of a bowl, in real life and in video games.
Rigging
This path is the game's most inventive...er, pun intended. Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of the skating scene in games past is the fact that serious skaters often have to build their own rigging for jumps and rails. Not everyone lives in a place with perfectly sloped curves and banisters. Riggers are the wildmen on decks and they'll make their own world, thanks. They'll also wear the most workmanlike gear and be easily identifiable as someone who could be fixing your roof as easily as skating an impossible line.
So Proving Ground brings back the Build Menu from Project 8 and makes it the path's first big skill. You'll find an array of items like quarter-pipes and rail sections that expands as objectives are completed. Build up the Build Menu and you'll be able to build a classic skate park just about anywhere.
That's not enough for a Rigger, though, so Modding is the second skill, and Breaking and Entering the third. Modding will let you extensively reshape any of the game's three cities (Baltimore, DC and Philadelphia) by not just building your own rails and ramps, but performing some low-grade demolition on the world around you. Combine that with B&E and you'll be able to tweak out some unique building interiors into a fully customized skate park.
This is also where the game's online component really takes off, since you can post your altered cities online for other players to skate and shoot video in. The video editor is a whole different aspect of Proving Ground, however, and one that every player should be able to dig deep into, thanks to the easy interface and seamless upload options.
Posted: 10 Oct 2007
