''Tony Hawk's Proving Ground'' is a 2007 skateboarding video game developed by

Neversoft Neversoft Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Woodland Hills, California. The studio was founded by Joel Jewett, Mick West and Chris Ward in July 1994 and was acquired by Activision in October 1999. Initially, the ...

for the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

, Vicarious Visions for the Nintendo DS, and by Page 44 Studios for the PlayStation 2 and Wii. ''Proving Ground'' is the ninth installment in the ''

Tony Hawk's ''Tony Hawk's'' is a skateboarding video game series published by Activision and endorsed by the American professional skateboarder of the same name. The series was primarily developed for home consoles by Neversoft from launch to 2007, until ...

'' series, and the last to be developed by

as the franchise was then transferred to

Robomodo Robomodo was an American independent video game developer based in Chicago, Illinois. Robomodo was formed in early 2008 by former employees of Midway Games and EA Chicago. They are best known for being the developer of several post-Neversoft game ...

Gameplay

''Proving Ground'' features gameplay that is more reminiscent of earlier ''Tony Hawk'' games, whilst including new features such as Nail-The-Manual and Nail-The-Grab. These are similar to the Nail-The-Trick mode from the previous game, '' Tony Hawk's Project 8''.

Single-player

There are 9 levels in the game. They are in 3 East Coast cities,

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and Washington, D.C. The levels differ between the different console versions. In the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, there is one open world. In the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions, levels have to be selected by pausing the game. Three different types of goals in Story Mode are available; Rigger, Career, and Hardcore. In each level, there are two arcade machines, one for high scores and the other to play classic mode. This game has three Nail the Trick modes (Nail the Trick, Nail the Grab, and Nail the Manual). The PlayStation 2 and Wii versions do not include the Nail the Manual feature. The Classic Mode feature allows the player to play each city section in the style of early ''Pro Skater'' games. There is a Free Skate mode on the PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, and Wii versions.

Multiplayer

The game is the first installment in the ''Tony Hawk's'' series which allows

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" o ...

features via the

PlayStation Network PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smar ...

. One can host or join an online party, which allows up to 4 players, who are able to free-roam in one of the three cities. The players can also invite other players to their ''Skate Lounge'', a fully-customisable

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, ...

in Philadelphia, where one can put ramps, rails, items, and even challenges.

Reception

''Proving Ground'' was met with mixed to positive reviews upon release. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, both the

and

versions had an average score of 72, the PlayStation 2 version had an average score of 65, and the Wii version had an average score of 57. All of these scores are considered "mixed or average" by the site. The PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii versions were criticized for not having the same mechanics that are in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions. The Nintendo DS version received generally favorable reviews from critics. On

it received an average score of 79 out of 100 based on 21 reviews. On

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

it received an average score of 78% based on 19 reviews. Notably however, the game received a 9/10 from the Official UK Xbox Magazine. The Official UK PlayStation Magazine awarded the game 7/10.

References

External links

''Tony Hawk's Proving Ground'' official website
{{Tony Hawk games 2007 video games Activision games Multiplayer and single-player video games Multiplayer online games Neversoft games Nintendo DS games Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection games PlayStation 3 games PlayStation 2 games Skateboarding video games

Proving Ground A proving ground (US) is an installation or reservation in which technology such as weapons, military tactics and automobile prototypes are experimented with or tested. Proving grounds can be operated by government bodies or civilian industries. ...

Vicarious Visions games Video games set in the United States Video games set in Baltimore Video games set in Philadelphia Video games set in Washington, D.C. Video games using Havok Video games with customizable avatars Wii games Xbox 360 games Video games developed in the United States Page 44 Studios games