Tony Hawk's Project 8 Xbox 360 Review

Tony Hawk's Project 8 goes back to what the series should have stayed at, pure skateboarding. The story line is that you want to join Tony Hawk's new group made up of the top 8 amateur skaters. And while you will be doing some weird things in the game, it's not going to be anything over the top. This also means that you've also played most of what is in Project 8 since a skateboarding game can only go so far aside from the graphics. That's not to say that this isn't a good game, only that you may not find the game to last too long before finding it repetitive.

Finding new things to put into the Tony Hawk series must be a big concern for Activision as it's hard to figure out how they will be able to keep things fresh. The new feature for Project 8 is the ability to enter slow-motion and control your boarder's feet separately to perform tricks. The camera zooms into a focus on your feet as the left thumbstick controls your left foot and the right thumbstick your right foot. This allows you to flip and spin the board when you want to and when to land the trick. It takes a bit of trial and error to get things figured out on how to successfully pull off this feature but is a fun addition.

Expanding from last year, we continue to see no loading within the game but rather only when you load up your saved game. This really is a great thing to have in the game and makes you wonder if other developers would be able to do something like this to reduce loading in other games.

Considering we have familiar gameplay, it would've been nice to see a more advanced create-a-skater mode. If the career mode requires you to use a created character, it seems reasonable to have a fairly deep create mode. It doesn't have to be as deep as, say, Smackdown vs Raw 2007, but something more than what we have been given.

In a way, I felt that they took things from the previous versions with some new additions to make Project 8. Fans waiting for a new Tony Hawk adventure will enjoy this latest offering but some will find things a bit too familiar and not worth the full purchase price. I really don't know what they could do in the next offering to make the game worth while.

SCORE: 8/10