Giant Bombcast 06-03-2008 [Giant Bomb, via VG247]

The rest of the list features properties that many wouldn't mind seeing taken out back and put out of their misery—looking at you Tony Hawk—but there are a few choices I take issue with.

I'd be perfectly happy to see another (good) Tomb Raider, for one, and hope that Underworld is giving proper time to incubate. But I can't agree that Spyro the Dragon should be put to bed before yet another awful Sonic the Hedgehog game. And Guitar Hero's getting better with each iteration? Really? I guess we can agree to disagree.

These video game sequels need to be retired [San Francisco Chronicle - thanks, Matthias!]

I think it's possible to incorporate the Wii Fit board into one of our games, but it would change the control scheme dramatically and we'd have to figure out how to make that work. So I don't know yet.

Tony Hawk on Proving Ground [via maxconsole]

Part I: Video Creation
If there's one under appreciated trend in next-gen consoles, it's the powerful video creation toolsets. We've already talked about Halo 3's breakthrough multiplayer recording system that will change the way fan videos are created and shared. Tony Hawk's Proving Ground offers a slightly less powerful but possibly more creative video system.

Aside from making 30 second recordings of standard follow cams and side angles, THPG offers actual camera placement to catch the right angle on your best tricks. You know those crazy, super wide pool jumping skateboard videos you've seen? You can do that. And hopefully, with fully positionable cameras, you can do a lot more that no one's yet thought of.

Clips can then be assembled in a timeline (the process of which I didn't get to see), and a load of filters and transitions can give your video that rough but highly-produced look we've come to expect in bigger budget skateboarding videos.

The brilliance of the system is that it records animation information instead of button presses (we're guessing the same is true with Halo 3 and other modern video systems). Clips remain small since the game engine streams the content.

Part II: Jabba the Hoodie
Some would expect a hoodie to flow gracefully in the wake of a skateboarder's ollies. These people would be wrong.

Because the researchers at Activision have, we're assuming, sunk millions of dollars into understanding just how a hoodie reacts to the countless environmental physics of the world.

For instance, did you know hoodies best resemble a fluid-filled bladder? Did you know this bladder has a "mind of its own," often reaching out to grab bricks and signs like a horny tail?

Because you do now.

I was only able to catch a chunk of it, but the audience seemed to love checking out the day's top videos while getting a chance to be on live MTV. At some point the host brought Tony Hawk up onto the stage to talk about video games and his propensity to injure himself. The segment was short, but in it we learned that Tony Hawk has four sons, that they love video games. They can kick Hawk's ass at Guitar Hero but not at his namesake video game. He also said that only one of his sons seem to display the same blatant disregard for self-preservation that helped propel Hawk's career to superstardom. That son, Hawk said, needs to have be watched closely.

Hawk ended the segment by hopping up on a skateboard and propelling himself off the stage and through the crowd, a small crowd of body guards running in his wake. About ten feet away from the stage Hawk popped off the board, talked to a fan and walked from the hall.

We gave him the call; Neversoft cooked up a more polished demo, which had an actual skateboarder and two tricks. We called Tony in, and all the Activision suits assembled in the conference room... Tony just comes rolling in with his ripped cargo pants, sits down at the table and suit after suit gets up and whips out revenue charts and so on. Tony's just gotta sit there the whole time. At the end, we wheel in the Neversoft demo and, since Tony was a gamer growing up, he was totally into it. Then we didn't hear from him over a month. I think he was talking to some other companies.

While the game still maintains the old starting as a nobody and working your way up to star status motif we've seen in the past several games, this time around it's all about how you get there. Proving Ground introduces the concept of character classes to the Tony Hawk universe, with nine storylines spread throughout three different skater types. If you want to go pro and have your picture on the cover of magazines you can choose the path of the Career Skater, who strives for endorsements and fame. The Hardcore Skater is about keeping it real, skating just for the thrill of pushing himself and the sport to the limit. The most interesting class in my opinion was the Rigger, who can actually switch into build mode and create ramps and rails right on the streets he skates on. It works like the create a park mode of earlier games, only it happens right in the level you are skating in.

You can focus on one skater type, following its storylines and missions to become the top of your class, or you dip into all the storylines, though to get the most out of each archetype you'll want to follow things through to the end. As you progress you'll earn class-based rewards. The Career Skater might get a signature board or an endorsement decorated outfit, while the Rigger will earn new parts or engineering-themed clothing. In addition, each of the game's three cities - Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC - has an unlockable area specific to each skater type, giving you incentive to play through the game as each.

Project 8's Nail the Trick mode was one of the neatest innovations to come out of the franchise in some time, and in Proving Grounds it has been expanded upon to include Nail the Grab and Nail the Manual modes, using the same analog stick controls and slow-motion effect as Nail the Trick does. The presenter demonstrated a long series of tricks switching between the three modes that just looked incredibly cool.

Speaking of looking cool, Proving Grounds allows you to share those cool moments with your friends with the new video editor, a multi-track application in the game that allows you to overlay clips, special effects, and music to create your own trick reel. More than just a neat extra, creating clips figures into some of the game's missions, where you'll have to create a video that is graded on how you edit to the beat. Each of the over 60 music tracks in the game has a beat pattern attributed to it, and you score points by tricking and changing camera angles and scenes to the beat. Since the game stores videos based on code and not as actual video files, it'll be easy to upload the clips for all the world to see.

Multiplayer has been tweaked as well. Now at anytime during the game you can bring up a map that shows who else is skating in your area and join them on the fly with very little load times. On top of this, each player will have their own custom room where unlocked and purchased trophies can be setup to create their own skate park, which they can invite friends to check out...sort of like a tiny PlayStation Home.

Can Tony Hawk survive EA's Skate? After seeing Proving Grounds in action, I think it very well could. Comparing the two is almost like comparing NFL Blitz to Madden. One is over the top insanity while the other is a more realistic rendering of the sport, and there is certainly room for both in the market. Whatever happens when the games go head to head, this is one of the most interesting offerings the Tony Hawk franchise has seen in years. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Japanese developers so get the DS. Western ones, it appears, do not. A feature over at Pocket Gamer shows that while a ton of non-Japanese companies are making DS games, most of them just aren't very good. The site took all of Metacritic's 201 DS scores and tried to see where American and Japanese games rated on the review scale. Their results?

...realise that the highest-scoring non-Japanese DS game is Tony Hawk's American Sk8land, in 16th position with (a very respectable) 84 per cent. We then have another Activision title, Ultimate Spiderman, in 34th place, and then another Tony Hawk's title, Downhill Jam, in 40th.

On the whole, the bulk of the top 100 places — 74 of them — are from Japan, while the country is responsible for just 32 of the bottom 101 places.

Tony Hawk, the West's great hope in DS gaming. Brian Ashcraft

DS In Japan And Abroad [Pocket Gamer via Flame War Advance]

We've heard a lot about EA's entry in the skateboarding genre, but haven't actually seen much. A few videos of real life skaters just rappin' to the camera, some character models, little else. Now, GameVideos has the first clip of the game in action. What do you think? Good enough to dethrone current skate king Tony Hawk? Michael McWhertor

Following some quick clips of Ghost Rider—a movie Landau mistakenly referred to as Ghostbusters, eliciting chuckles from the crowd and a hasty correction—the topic extended to bringing the visceral experience of movies to games. Citing the popularity of Saving Private Ryan, a movie with raw cinematic appeal, he proposed that games like Medal of Honor, Company of Heroes and Call of Duty were direct extensions of the movie's influence on a mass market.

He then showed a clip of Sony Picture's own Casino Royale, culminating in an interesting product development.

After the brutal intensity of the best action moments from the latest 007 flick, Landau showed footage (some of it "target render") of an multiplayer title in development at Sony Online Entertainment's Seattle office, codenamed "Vista". Why Vista? "We had to push it back a year," he explained. Damn! Ice burn!

The game featured a pair of digital agents, one tall, dark, and tuxedoed, his female counterpart in a slinky cocktail dress sporting plenty of heaving cleavage. After a brief intro showcasing some Q-caliber gadgetry built into the main character's mount (a BMW look-alike), the two engaged in a massive firefight with all manner of street thugs, characters that looked ripped from Manhunt (or a Misfits show). Securing the aluminum brief case they were after, a dreadlocked, face-painted baddie made a dramatic appearance, seconds before the clip went black. Again, citing Hollywood hits like The Bourne Identity and the Bond franchise, Landau and SOE believe that action-oriented espionage is ready to break out. Hence, the currently untitled game.

He also showed some clips of Sony Pictures Classics "Riding Giants", a movie that helped spawn the upcoming penguin surfing animated venture "Surf's Up." Talking animals? Normally, I'd say "No thanks!" but it got a laugh out of me. He then showed a clip of Ubisoft's game adaptation that goes by the same name, which actually looked pretty damn good. More Tony Hawk's Pro Skater than Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer, the penguin surfing action did give off a very visceral feel. Riding (inexplicably placed) railslides, crashing through obstacles, hitting massive wave jumps—it all felt very close to the intense clips he'd shown in film form.

While convergence may be the wrong (tired) term, the extension of a film's strength did bring up an interesting design challenge for the gathered creators. Landau wrapped up by challenging developers to take advantage of share rendering and animation tools to extend the experience of powerful, primal cinema to create equally powerful games.

Then, he told everyone to go drink lots of booze. Don't mind if I do, Yair. Michael McWhertor

According to a Lazard Capital Markets analyst Electronic Arts is hard at work on a new skateboarding game that will compete with Activision's Tony Hawk franchise.

Skate is scheduled to hit next-gen consoles next year, according to the report.

Analyst Colin Sebastian remains faithful that Activision's TH franchise will survive the threat. Afterall, the franchise has made more than $1 billion in net revenue for Activision.

Interesting. I wonder if EA is going to try and line-up another skateboarding big name to try and dampen Tony Hawk's draw in the very limited market? More importantly, I wonder if this is some next-gen version of Skate or Die, that would rock. Brian Crecente

Here's the deal, allegedly, some developers have been shipped new motion sensing carts built for the Nintendo DS. The accessory supposedly sits inside the GBA slot a la the Rumble Cart and operates in much the same fashion as the Wario Ware Twisted technology.

Some other details from the same tipster:

• One of the first games that will use this gyro-sensor is Tony Hawk Downhill Jam for the DS.


• Games like Excite Truck and Tony Hawk Downhill Jam for Nintendo Wii will allow you to connect your Nintendo DS (lite) wireless with your Nintendo Wii. The DS will be used as a controller.


• The size of this accessory is the same like the rumble packs for the Nintendo DS and the DS lite. Nintendo will show off this new accessory at the Leipzig Games Convention.

While I wouldn't put it past Nintendo to implement Wario Ware Twisted/Yoshi Topsy Turvy tech in a DS accessory cart, my bullshit detector is definitely picking up something. We'll see if this pans out at the end of the month. Michael McWhertor

Gyro-sensor accessory for Nintendo DS?

I'm still in recovering at Windy Pines Rehab Clinic from a serious bout of Tony Hawk Pro Skater fatigue, but Downhill Jam, with Wii controls will at least get a rental from me. The game is being developed by Toys For Bob, who may not have the best console release record, but get a pass on any bombs for their involvement with Star Control 2.

Thanks for the tip, Corvillus, Michael McWhertor

Playsyde has posted a video they culled from Japanese super-site 2ch which may be (just may be) test-animation from a next-gen Tony Hawk title. It looks a little suspect to me, as the models and lighting aren't that hot, and the animation doesn't seem like that much of a jump from current generation THPS games. But this is Activision we're talking about here. ;)

I'm sure we'll hear more about a new, true next-gen Tony Hawk game in about one week.

Test video of Tony Hawk next-gen?

Tony Hawk : One combo 984,000 points. I shit you not.

THPS High Score [Agoride]

MTV sends word of the new Tony Hawk soundtrack. It sounds like it's going to be worth buying the game for, even if you don't like skateboarding. The sound track is going to feature 14 classic punk songs covered by today's hottest punk and hardcore bands.

Here's the list:
Taking Back Sunday - The Descendents' "Suburban Home"/"I Like Food"
Senses Fail - Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized"
Alkaline Trio - TSOL's "Wash Away"/"Beneath the Shadows"
Emanuel - The Stooges' "Search and Destroy"
Fall Out Boy - The Gorilla Biscuits' "Start Today"
Thursday - The Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love?"
From Autumn to Ashes - Fear's "Let's Have a War"
Hot Snakes - Government Issue's "Time to Escape"
Thrice - Minor Threat's "Seeing Red"/"Screaming at a Wall"
Saves the Day - The Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer"
My Chemical Romance - The Misfits' "Astro Zombies"
Rise Against - Black Flag's "Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie"/"Fix Me"
Dropkick Murphys - The Adolescents' "Who Is Who"
The Bled - Bad Brains' "House of Suffering"

They need to make it possible for you to slap your game disc into a CD player and listen to the soundtrack on the go. And if any publisher figures out a way to do that, it was my idea and I expect a big fat royalty check. Fat!