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The last Tony Hawk game I played was Tony Hawk Underground on Xbox/PS2. Up until then, I was down with the Hawk games with Pro Skater 1, 2, and 3 in my collection. After THUG came out, I basically decided to take a break from the skater games. I skipped out on THUG 2, didn't get down with Tony Hawk American Wasteland, and I slept hard on last year's Tony Hawk Project 8. Now with EA's Skate bringing a breath of fresh air into the skater gaming scene, it looks like the Tony Hawk franchise might need to step their game up, and so here is Tony Hawk's Proving Ground.

Being that I haven't played a Tony Hawk game since 2003's Tony Hawk Underground, getting started on Proving Ground, I felt like I haven't missed too much in terms of controls and game play. Hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it, right? You begin by creating your character and then you're thrust into the skating world. There are three storylines to choose from: Career, Hardcore and Rigger. Each storyline focuses on different parts of a real skater's life whether you're just in it for the fun aspect, looking to come up with new tricks all the time in Hardcore, or building crazy contraptions to jump off of in Rigger, or you're looking to get sponsors, make cash and be famous in Career, you get a taste of it all. Within each story line, you learn new tricks, open new areas, and create skate videos. The catch is that you have to play through all the story lines to get all the moves and open the other areas as opposed to choosing one storyline to go through the whole game with. There are also instances where you're going through a challenge where you're required to do a specific trick that you haven't learned yet. So you'd have to go back to another story line to acquire and learn that trick. It's a hassle at first, but you'll end up working on that storyline anyway. In Project 8 they had the "Nail the Trick" move, for this version they added a "Nail the Grab" move where while you're in the air, everything goes into slow motion like some Matrix-ish camera work and you can pull off some real cool moves.

Although I dig the storylines, I like the Matrix moves, and even the opportunity to play "old school" style Tony Hawk games in certain areas, it still doesn't feel like that new, new style. It feels like just another update to the Hawk franchise and there isn't much revolution. I like the game, I would buy it, but that's just because I haven't played a Hawk game in four years. If I had been keeping up with the series and had to choose between Proving Ground and EA's new title Skate, I would have to go with Skate. Maybe next time Tony Hawk will blow our minds like he did when he first jumped into the video game arena. Mr. Hawk has a little competition now.

Q's RATING: 3.5 out of 5

Gametap: 6 out of 10

1up.com: 5.5 out of 10