Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground

(Activision for Xbox 360)
By Mike Delano

At this stage of the game in the Tony Hawk universe (Proving Ground is the ninth installment), there desperately has to be something new introduced to the gameplay or presentation to generate any sort of excitement about yet another title. That doesn’t happen this time around. Proving Ground inexplicably drops the colorful environments of Project 8 and replaces them with uniformly gray, washed-out, gritty urban areas. If you ever wanted to skate through a facsimile of the decayed streets of Baltimore featured in The Wire, now’s your chance. One explanation could be that Tony‘s rough new look is a flailing attempt to counter the harshly realistic controls and atmosphere of EA’s new skate sim Skate, but regardless, it only serves to further drain the life from this series, which needs a serious back-to-basics overhaul before it fades into irrelevance. Who will step up and give the Tony Hawk series the tough love it sorely needs and deserves?
(www.activision.com)