[Guns_LotsOfGuns]

Average score: 8
Number of votes: 14
% of 10 votes: 0%
% of votes 9 and above: 14%
% of votes 8 and above: 86%

Date updated: 29 August 2007

Couldnt find a user review thread for this so i thought id start one off

Its not surprising Tony Hawks Project 8 (THPS8) slipped under the radar this november with games like GOW and RS: Vegas available it was easy to just pass on "another" Tony Hawk (TH) game, and thats exactly what i did, with the scarred memory of the "Underground" editons there was no real incentive to pick up this game. So a full 10 days (and one pay slip) after its release i finally picked it up to see if Neversoft had left the series 6ft under or resurrected it to its former glory.

What they've done is put Bam Margera on his board and sent him back to Jackass, gone back to when TH was great (1-4) and delivered on some of the promises American Wasteland tried but ultimatly failed to deliver on. This game is about skating pure and simple, NO BMX, NO ridiculous storyline, NO getting off your board to do stupid objectives. The premise is straightforward, Tonys in town and wants to recruit the top 8 skaters for his project, you start at number 200 and need to make it into the top 8. Ranking up is acheived by completing goals that are set around the world.

The challenges are done really well, they have the Classic challenges which bring back the levels of old with find the secret disc, and get a high score objectives, the "do this trick there challenges", the wacky neversoft challenges like collecting golf balls, but the best (read:most addictive) ones are the spot challenges, signified by spray painted marks around the world they issues challenges to grind so far or manual from here to there and so on.

All of this is standard stuff, but the master stoke here is the difficulty level appraoch, like Amped 3 every goal is set into 3 difficulties, Amatuer, Professional and Sick. For me having played all the TH games the AM difficulty is pretty easy and i can usually achieve Pro off the bat, Sick is where this game holds its longevity, Sick is the right name for them, i have no doubt ill be hitting that "Retry Goal" button for a while yet.

Online isnt a huge part of the game but its there with numerous modes to compete in, it plays well and it works, there are still people with riduculous scores to play against. Join at your own risk!

Last years american wasteland lied and said it had no load times when what it really had was a series of levels connected by loading tunnels you had to skate through. THP8 delivers here, this is one big world which you open up peice by peice and your rarely left watching a load screen. The world looks very nice with surface bump mapping done nicely, water moving nicely when you roll through it, leaves being whipped up and when you you go into Nail The Trick Mode (Will we ever get bored of Bullet Time?) and focus on just your feet and your board to create a unique trick it looks very nice indeed.They really went to town with motion capture here to with the skater moving realistically and Havok providing excellent (but sometimes crazy) physics.

The game rewards you with skates videos from the whole cast of pros that feature in the game, with the "bail" footage being my favourite, they take the opportunity to pimp every brand they can and your able to buy no end of branded products to customise your skater with. One thing it lacks which could be a good or bad thing is a extensive Create a Skater mode, you essentially pick a character and customise them, personally im getting sick of creating a character in every game i play (When will there be a unified system across games for this?) and welcome the simplicity.

But the game is not without its faults the framerate drops quite often, not enough to wreck the game, but not so little i could say it was rare, for me its a trade off, theyve gotten gameplay right with the large world, difficulty and graphics i can deal with a bit of slow down here and there.

So there you have it TH is back on form its not perfect but it at least shows that they know what we want and that its possible, if they can refine the engine to deal with the framerate issues then the next game should be near perfect.

My Score:8

[AudioSlim]

Great review m8.

I've been playing TH8 a lot since it arrived, more so that Gears as it's a good pick up and put down again game.
Still got half the world still to unlock but enjoying the game v-much. Havent noticed any slow down to be honest as well.
If you like TH games then this is probably one of the best of the lot.
Well worthwhile getting if you havent already.

Slim

[wormvortex]

I'm a give it a 9 becuase it looks so fecking nice, play a treat, is extrememly fun to play (assuming you like skating/skating games) and has a killer soundtrack as usual (slayer- angel of death!)

I bought it the same day as Gears of War and IMHO it is a better game and the one i'd rather own out of the two

[mattg]

I've got this on my Christmas list, thanks for your thoughts I was considering changing it for something. I'll keep it now though.

[Guns_LotsOfGuns]

Whoa! who gave it an appalling, its not that bad!? Did you cut your hand on the disc or something?

Seriously though id like to hear your reasons for the score.

[JonnyConcrete]

Thanks for the review Guns.

I was a huge fan of Tony Hawk games when they first came out, but when they changed the format of the game I hated them and found them totally boring.

After reading your review I might give this a go, maybe pick it up 2nd hand somewhere.

[Codehead]

I've played Tony Hawk's games since THPS2. This one is a return to form after the Underground/American Wasteland oddness.

Graphically this is excellent, the 360 version of THAW should have been this good, the characters in the cut scenes are almost photo-realistic, only let down by odd looking joints at extremes of movement. The in-game visuals maintain the real world feel and are much more fluid than previous games.

The soundtrack is the usual mix of Rock, Metal and Punk. Not as memorable as some of the other games, but still fits well to the action.

The controls now use the analogue sticks which is the main stumbling block for veterans of the series. I still find myself slipping back to the D-pad when things get hairy. However, the finer control of the analogue sticks is noticeable when making precise jumps from rail to rail or between the crazy grind lines that litter the skyline. Along with 'Nail the trick', the new feature in the game. Ananlogue is hard to get to grips with, but does help get those huge combo scores.

The online play is odd, there's no urgency to get a match going, I've spent ages in lobbys, free skating with no sign of an competitive event.

All in all a good episode in the TH series, although EA's Skate is now set to challenge Neversoft's domination of the genre.

7/10 for me

[gowdewiz]

I've never really been into tony hawks games before, but i got this through on rental a while back and thought i'd give it a go.

I couldnt really fault it for what it does, but the one point i can make is it is very much aimed at people that have played the series before.... the learning curve is pretty steep and i soon found myself unable to complete many of the challenges even at the early stages of the game. Ultimately this made it pretty frustrating, and i soon gave up and sent it back....

The short time i spent on it there was plenty i liked, and i probably would have played it a lot more if i'd been able to progress.... its just a shame its not a little more forgiving.