|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
| |
TONY HAWK'S PROJECT 8 XBOX 360 REVIEW |
|
| |
Neversoft
has developed another boisterous Tony Hawk
title, this one is for the next generation
consoles. With the transition to HD, are we
getting revolutionary content? Not quite but the
succeeding label, Tony Hawk’s Project 8, dazzle
us with a few gameplay spectacles such as “Nail
the Trick” mode, daring spot challenges,
interaction with pro skaters, and fun
mini-games. The same basic trick principles
still drives the over-the-top skateboarding
action here, but the routines have been
restructured to better take advantage of the
hardware behind Xbox 360 and PS3. You would
think that these crucial changes would have
damaged the underlying player experience, as in
other games when the developer messes with an
old, time-tested formula—they don’t! The same
enthusiasm that powered the past Tony Hawk games
remains intact.
Neversoft has kept the gameplay relatively
smooth thanks to their extraordinary efforts in
conceptualizing the animation through
motion-capture technology. It’s easy to see how
well they blend the upper-body motions with the
lower-body movements, resulting in the most
realistic ollies, unbelievable grinding
sequences, and the fanciest footwork. But the
animations can only be as good as the controls
that are bind to them. Fortunately, Project 8’s
control mechanics are quite responsive. You can
easily perform various combinations of pro
tricks with a touch of a button. There are some
tricks that can be particularly hard to pull
off, especially if you are relatively new to the
Tony Hawk series. Thankfully, the game provides
three levels of achievements (amateur, pro, and
sick) as you try to reach your goal, whereas in
the previous versions, you had to choose the
game’s difficulty from the menu first.
Tony Hawk’s Project 8 provides a variety of game
options but of all the modes that is currently
selectable, the career mode offers the best
experience. This mode is played entirely
different from what you are used to. You skate
towards an orange glowing pedestrian, set off a
classic goal, and then bam—you open up a chain
of new goals! These goals include a variety of
challenges from incurring the longest grind to
completing a wall plant. These challenges are
nothing new but if you want something fresh, the
film goal and photo goal should deliver a good
exploit to the skills you already know. Both the
film goal and photo goal are fun. But it might
take you awhile to achieve the pro and sick
rankings. The film goal works like this: You
follow the guy with the camera and complete his
instructions on tricks. The photo goal is a bit
different. You must trick through the photo
shoot locations until time runs out. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
 |
|
| |
PRODUCT
OVERALL RATING: 8.5 OUT OF 10 |
|
| |
You can also
enter the freestyle competition where you rack
up on points doing killer tricks in front of a
crowd or judges. It’s fairly easy and this is
one of the best highlights in the game. You add
your own personal touch to the combos to show
what kind of skater you truly are. After
completing a set of challenges, a section of the
wall is removed, whereby giving you access to
new areas in the map. What's nice about it is
that your whole Tony Hawk world is seamless, a
vast open-ended skating adventure. You start out
in Suburbia and make your way through different
locations such as the Capitol, the School, and
the Factory to name a few. The 3D compass on the
screen really helps you identify your next
goals. As you skate the world of Project 8,
you’ll obtain stokens, which you can use to
purchase new signature moves and board designs
in the pro shop. You get stokens by impressing
the locals with your high-flying tricks.
Stokens can also be obtained by ramming into
unsuspecting pedestrians thereby coughing up
points out of their system. But be careful
though. They can do the same to you and you can
lose some of your stokens in the process. If you
think Tony Hawk is all about random skating just
to clear different goals, think again. The game
gives you plenty of “side-shows”. There is one
where you had to bowl yourself into huge pins.
This is done by intentionally ejecting yourself
out of your skateboard and while wobbling
through the air, you aim for the best shot at
the pins using the left stick. If you manage to
take down at least six of them, you get your
required AM points. It’s really fun and it’s
quite a diversion from the constant quest of
completing those traditional objectives. While
the career mode is sure to fire up fans of the
series, it’s sad to say the multiplayer player
aspect of Tony Hawk’s Project 8 still needs a
little work.
The fiddly frame rate interferes with much of
the “versus” experience, and stitching together
combos can get frustrating at times. These
issues also extend to the online component of
the game. The obvious lag makes it hard to enjoy
with your skateboarding friends. Graphically,
this is the best Tony Hawk we have seen to date!
The motion capture done to this game is so
surreal you just couldn’t get enough of “Nailing
the Tricks”. Watching your character go into
matrix-like sequence is very addicting and the
fancy footwork is very impressive. The game
shows off its incredible radial blurring and
some really nice depth-of-field special effects,
everything from rail-balance animations to
high-flying tricks. The surrounding environment
is captured in vivid details and it’s filled
with lively pedestrian interaction. The
excellent audio also helps provide a more
realistic experience and it truly adds a nice
touch to the dramatic animation. Listening to
the physics as your board cascades to various
surfaces is uncanny.
Tony Hawk's Project 8 did a solid job
synthesizing the sound effects for taking off of
the ramp and accurately depicting the grinds.
The voice-over work is okay for the most part,
but the music rocks to give you that boost of
adrenaline momentum. Overall, Tony Hawk’s
Project 8 delivers a solid skateboarding
experience despite its rocky multiplayer
options. The superb animation, impressive trick
system, the excellent physics, Nail the Trick
feature, and the abundant challenges are enough
to justify Project 8 as the king of
skateboarding games. However, don’t get this
game with the notion of playing it for
multiplayer session. That aspect still needs
some fine tuning. As a single-player game, it’s
everything you can image in a skateboarding
frenzy (even though there is not much attention
on the custom creation side)—at least for now.
We can only expect better things in the next
Tony Hawk title, whatever it is. If you’re a
skateboarding freak that is looking into
somewhat intense skateboarding experience,
there’s no better game out there than Project 8.
But if you’re more of a casual type, then it is
best if you rent this one first. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
