I beat Tony Hawk Proving Ground’s main story line this weekend. I still have a few side challenges to get and then I’ll probably go back and try to get Sick on every challenge. I have been really enjoying the game so far. There are a few little changes that make Proving Ground much better than the last Tony Hawk game, Project 8. With Project 8 new challenges would not unlock until you had a certain percentage of the previous challenges completed on Pro and Sick, but they were so hard I could not get all of them complete. In Proving Ground as long as you complete the challenges on Amateur the next ones open up. It also seems that the Pro and Sick levels are a little more reasonable. Additionally, the stat upgrade levels are a lot easier to level up in Proving Ground than they were in Project 8. The other minor but great change is that they got rid of the special meter. Now you can just throw the special tricks any time you want after you unlock them. These three things made the game a lot less stressful and more fun.

I also really liked how the main story line was split into three forks. Even better is that you can do as much or as little of each of these story arches as you want and in any order you want. The three story line areas are Competitive, Hardcore, and Rigger. The Competitive challenges are the most like the old Tony Hawk games where you’re trying to get high scores and trick combos. These are complimented with the new Nail-the-Trick additions (I’ll get to those in a minute). The Hardcore challenges were the most unique from past Tony Hawk games. They consisted of doing things related to agro pushing (again I’ll get to that stuff) and skating bowls. The Rigger challenges were similar to a few of the ones in Project 8 where you can add or changes the level layouts. However, these have been greatly expanded over what few things there were in Project 8, and they are available anywhere in the game world. Just hit the back button and it pulls up the rigger menu allowing you to add and modify the items in the level. Yes, it is one large level again with portions unlocking as you play, but I really like this map layout better than Project 8. It is quite a large map, once you get everything unlocked, that consists of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC. The three cities are linked together smoothly in a sort of triangle type fashion using bridges and subways.

I’m not sure how they did it, but there are more things you can do in the game than ever before, yet the controls seemed simpler than Project 8. A couple of the new things you can do are the agro push and checking. Agro pushing allows you to get some extra speed to make larger/longer jumps. The checking option is actually one of my favorite additions. When you are skating around you can pull the left trigger and you shoulder check. Combine this with the agro push and you send people flying. It is hilarious and great stress release after falling in a trick or combo to check the closest pedestrian. They also expanded the Nail-the-Trick mode. Before all you could do were flip tricks, but now you can also do grab tricks, finger-flips, and body spins in the Nail-the-Trick mode. I liked Nail-the-Trick before but now it is great. You can combine the flips and grabs together to makes some crazy combos. The also added Nail-the Manual which you activate the same way as Nail-the-Trick, but instead of doing a trick with the thumb sticks you pull the right trigger and it allows you to prepare for a manual. The combos I was making with Nail-the-Trick into Nail-the-Manual were some of the best I’ve ever done in any Tony Hawk game.

In addition to all the great skating there is also a video mode that allow you to take videos of your skating and share them. The video editor was pretty impressive. It allows you to add music, adjust camera angels, and add overlays. After throwing some great combos it is fun to put those video clips together and send them to my friends to show off.

I’ve heard quite a few people saying the prefer Skate to Tony Hawk Proving Ground, but not me. Sure, skate is more realistic, but it is also a lot harder. I prefer to be able to pull a trick after a couple tries not after hours of practicing. Sure, Tony Hawk is not realistic and no one can do that kind of stuff in real life, but I’m not playing a video game to do the stuff I can do in real life. I play games to have fun, and Tony Hawk Proving Ground is a lot of fun.