Tony Hawk's Project 8 Critic Reviews

This eighth instalment in the hugely popular skateboarding series, and the first built specially for the Xbox 360, is the best and most realistic by far.

The presentation is stellar, the focus on gameplay is appreciated, and the new gameplay features like the “nail the trick” mode make this easily the best Tony Hawk game to date.

Neversoft has created the most realistic skate title ever made. The graphics, animation, sound, challenge system, and Live integration has created a game that will challenge the legendary "Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2" for its crown as the king of the series.

Project 8 is going to thrash the Xbox 360 competition this holiday season and will easily be on track for sports game of the year. With a completely new physics and game engine, and totally remastered tricks and environments to meet the demands of this engine, a new era in skateboarding is born, and Tony Hawk's Project 8 is "next-gen gaming" in its truest definition to date.

What Neversoft has built in Tony Hawk's Project 8 is, without a doubt, its masterpiece. The series has evolved into a sort of "evens are groundbreaking, and the odds are great" formula, but not only is this the greatest of the series, it's the best entry since "THPS4," which has long been the series' crowning achievement.

Project 8 is ridiculously pretty. The overall graphics received a significant upgrade, but we were especially impressed with the character animations. The virtual skaters look and move just like their real-life counterparts... The best Tony Hawk game since "THPS2."

The new Nail the Trick mode, which enables the player to control each foot’s movement with the analog sticks, adds yet another new move to Tony’s long list of techniques. I’m happy to report that it works well within the established arsenal of moves.

While exaggerated and impossible, it's all executed properly. Every wobble, every turn, all motion-captured. The ragdoll on the bails is barking mad, even allowing you to augment its lunacy by extending the skeleton-destroying impacts, but that just makes the boring bit - falling off your skateboard - more fun.

The first time you create your own sick flip trick is worth the price of admission. This game, despite all its faults rocks. It is indeed the best Hawk game to date. even over the coveted "THPS3."

Getting rid of the Jackass cast and the forced punk image really did the series well and the new engine is just great. The game has an almost infinite replayability.

I won’t sit here and tell you that the game is perfect. It’s close, but there are still holes. I thought the create-a-skater function that went with the Career/Story mode was painfully underdone.

Old Man Hawk does it again, with an engrossing blend of ideas new and old.

The return of old-school goals instead of playing through a cheesy storyline was a very good decision. By far the best Tony Hawk title to date.

The world is far greater in scope than it first appears and with skate lines that span the entire map, purists will be tearing it up for months just trying to plan the perfect combo.

Put it this way, I must have clocked up around 30 hours of play so far and I'm still not tired of simply moseying about town, popping a few grinds and flip tricks, trying to get an astronomical high combo score to unlock an achievement. It just feels so right and ultimately therapeutic.

A lot of the fluff that has plagued the series for the last couple years has been stripped away, revealing a game that fast, furious, and focused almost 100 percent on the play experience.

Although Neversoft removed a couple creation options, and a few other little nitpicks there is definitely a lot of content packed in here.

This is Tony Hawk and that means pulling off sick tricks and working your way up the rankings to show you are a top boarder. There is a lot of challenge here and some new features that should please fans of the series.

If you’re a casual fan of the series or are interested in giving it a try for the first time, I think that you’ll find Project 8 as enjoyable as I did.

Tony Hawk 8 is an incredible upgrade for the series but at the same time it lacks in some areas. Create-A-Park is gone, Create-A-Skate has been downplayed a lot, some things are a bit too easy, and finally the whole world feels a bit stale.