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DJ RedJeans's Blog
| Tony Hawk: Proving Ground, the little game that couldnt |
I would like to start off this review by saying that I was really expecting a lot from this game. I should also mention that this is by far the worst Tony Hawk game I've ever played in my life and that its more jumbled than a rubix cube you let your little brother try and solve. I told you all of that just to give you a quick feel of where this review is going, which is downhill (jam) quick, in case you wanna skip it and just give me mad kudos for warning you not to purchase or, god forbid, buy. Oh, and yeh that was a poke at Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam. Rofflecopter.
Moving on.
First off I guess I should mention that this is yet another re-iteration in the Tony Hawk series brought to you by Neversoft and Activision. As you probably know by now since we're on Tony Hawk 21 or something by now the basic storyline here is you're an unknown skater from Randomville, USA looking to make it big. Whoop-dee-fucking-do. With that said I will mention that TH:PG does allow a step in customization of your skater, which is a big plus being as their last venture, Tony Hawk:Project 8, gave you a basic streamlined nobody and told you to just "wing it".
The game opens up in the general big city setting and, as the last few Tony Hawk games have seen, it is a sandbox type unlock as you go along venture. Thus meaning that you will open more of the city up as you do more missions and have to travel through to where you must meet up with the next skating superstar who will have you doing any of three different things. See, in TH:PG they have broken up the main storyline into 3 different types of "skaters". The first of these is the super stardom hopefuls who are going from show to show in attempts of getting signed by a couple companies to get their "sponsorship on" for the so called "mad ducketts yo". If you're feeling like skating compels you and that you're too "hardcore" for fame you can play as just that...a hardcore bruiser who skates for no one but themselves. You know, the kinda guy who is more likely to end up with a photo session at the county jail and not the cover of Thrasher magazine. Finally you can choose to chase your dream as an engineer of the skating trade by building your way to glory. The MacGyver of skating if you will. You remember when the kids around the neighborhood built that really rickety ramp with the "explosions", which were just like 200 bottle rockets, around the bottom for effect and that one kid tried to go off of it an it fell apart and exploded? Yeh this class is for those kids.
Since we've gone ahead and gotten that out of the way I would like to start off with what this game did right. They took the outstanding feature called "Nail the Trick", where the player is able to slow down time and use the analog sticks to control the board thus giving the game a new element of play, and expanded it from not only flip tricks but grabs and grinds as well. I feel that this one small addition brought a lot to the game and I think they did it very well. They also managed to....uhm....well....err....and with that....
We will now move on to the things that they did wrong in the game. I think this will be a longer list for some reason.... possibly because the game is a waste of a free rental. Anyway, one of the things I was hoping so much for moving into this game was the fact that the developers had brought back the ability to customize your character. When I heard this the only thing I could think of was "I want a bad ass skinny muthafudger with a purple mohawk and a panda coat". The kind of person that's unthinkable of riding in the real world. But to me, reality never played a part in Tony Hawk games. Unfortunately with the customization they brought to the table was watered down like the beer in that Hell's Angels bar down the road from the interstate...the one where you wanna say something but you don't in fear of your life. Thankfully I don't see Activision and Neversoft bursting down my door for giving this game a bad review on myspace. The only customization available in the game is from brands that are commonly associated with Tony Hawk and skating in general. On top of that there is a limited amount of things available from the beginning of the game. I assume this is to give you the "feeling of accomplishment" when you unlock them, Bullshit. I don't feel accomplished....I feel like I spent 3 hours trying to do a goddamn kick flip and for what? No not some bad ass cut scene....a fucking red and black beanie that should have been available from the beginning. Among the other issues I've run into in this game I must say that they have less improved collision detection and actually moved farther away from it. When I hit a car I expect it to throw me off balance a little or crash me. When I bump into a skater at high speed I expect that, knowing the law of motion, he will go flying off his board and not put me at a damned dead fucking stop. Not to mention, ACTIVISION, if you're going to put a ramp/bowl/jump/halfpipe next to a GOD DAMN WALL make sure you can't accidentally glitch and be sent flying through the fucking thing. Nothing pisses me off more than spending 20 minutes perfecting what could be a combo over 1 million only to find: C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER by the fucking wall. Sonsofbitches. On top of all of this fail nothing in this game is clearly labeled the way the tutorials say they are. I will even give Project 8 its props for having things clearly labeled. Icons don't appear until you near them, its a pain to activate them, and half the time you end up hitting lines by accident as if they "appeared" from thin air like Bill Cosby in Ghost Dad. Seriously, I understand you're going for realism but the last time I checked this game was titled TONY HAWK and not EA's SKATE. To top off the list of the pile of fail that TH:PG is I must say the story mode did not even begin to draw me in or cause me to feel any entertainment from what was happening in the game.
"But Ashton, what about the Tony Hawk classic mode found in all Tony Hawk games?" Oh you mean the one you find randomly around the areas by way of an arcade machine? Fuck'em. I don't want to pick a pro skater I want to use my fucking skater. I bought this game to make a skater and to do what I cannot obviously do in real life. I don't want to play as Bam "I cut the top off of a fucking Lamborghini Diablo with billy fucking idol" Margera. I see enough of him on MTV I don't want him in my game....or should I restate my GAME WITHIN A GAME.
Please Activision and Neversoft I beg you...You hit the hammer directly on the head with THUG and THUG2. You gave us unlimited control over the skater and their attire. On top of that you said "hmmm...fuck it. Make your own boards and tags". Do you know how much I enjoyed that? Those games really brought me to feel as if I was IN the game. Sure they were both a little short but littered with zany voiceovers and crazy guest appearances. There's just something about playing as steve-o on a crazy bull like thing that I enjoyed so much. I don't mind the load times. I really don't. It gives me time to get a drink or make a sammich. Please knock it off with this sandbox bullshit. Give me my levels and my dreams of a good Tony Hawk game back. I beg of you.
In conclusion I must really say that this game is not worth a rental from even the most hardcore Tony Hawk fans. But, hey, you might enjoy it on some level....or if you're a masochist. In the end I, sadly, must give Tony Hawks Proving Ground a 78%. We'll grade it as a high C at best. I'm being nice Activision and Neversoft. Let's hope you don't fuck up the next one because you took all the good developers and had them working on a notorious beat game...*cough*guitar hero 3*cough* |
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Tuesday, 24 June - 15:53:41 |
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