Tony Hawk's Proving Ground: Rigger Skater

Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, the ninth in the popular series, adds a new twist to the single-player story mode. This time around, gamers can choose to follow the path of the skate style that best suits their nature: Career, Hardcore, and Rigger. Each style offers different skill sets, which can be upgraded. You can choose to focus on one path and follow a single storyline, or experiment with the different types of skate styles to create a more broadly-skilled skater.

Ultimately, you will have to choose one dominant style type. The path you select not only opens specific challenges, but unlocks different areas of the game world. Someone focused only on the Career storyline may see Landsdowne in Baltimore but might not see the Air & Space Museum. How you skate influences how you look. Hardcore guys will have scars and look tougher. Career gents are likely to be decked out in sponsor labels. Once you've completed a story path, you'll unlock a special uber goal specific to your skater type. You'll also have the chance to build your own team of pros. The available roster depends on which pros you met during the game.

Over the next few weeks, IGN will take a look at the three different skater types in Tony Hawk's Proving Ground. We've previously covered the Career Skater. Now it's time to look at the Rigger.

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Rigger Skater

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Rigger skaters are the type that aren't satisfied with skating in drained pools or grinding on whatever rail happens to be available. A rigger creates their own skating environment by laying down skate pieces or modding parts of the environment. We saw the rigger in full use in Tony Hawk's Project 8 and it has now evolved into a fully-realized skill for Proving Ground.

A rigger's first skill unlocked is the Rigger Wheel. This can be pulled up at any time in the game and allows you to select from a number of items to place in the environment. At first it's just kickers and rails, but eventually you gain access to quarter pipes, spines, fun boxes, u-turn rails, and more. For a rigger, the world is pretty much their oyster. You can redefine a city if you like, then go online and have others skate and compete in your creation.

The second skill, modding, is learned from one of Proving Ground's storylines. You have entered a magazine competition with Daewon Song, Rodney Mullen, and Vanessa Torres. The contest? "Rig the World." The Mod Tool enables you to modify objects in the game world. You can knock down a billboard and bang it into a makeshift quarter pipe or kick over a lamppost for a rail. In the contest, you must modify all three of Proving Ground's cities and then takes photos of yourself and other skaters shredding on your new creation.

Lastly, you'll learn how to break and enter. That's right, break and enter. Your buddy foolishly lent Bam Margera $100. What an idiot, right? You go to get the cash back only to have Bam stealing your own wallet. This is when you learn to climb and, well, break and enter. To get back at Bam, you need to sneak into the Air & Space Museum and cause havoc in Bam's skate show. Here's the twist: The director loves your antics so much, he hires you to wreck other shows.

Tony Hawk's Proving Ground ships this October. Check back soon for our look at the final path, the Hardcore Skater.

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