Tony Hawk’s Project 8 is bound to hit stores less than a month from now and after playing two demos I’m confident to say that I’ll buy this game day one, despite the release of Gears of War during that same week. There’s a good chance that most of you will be missing out on this title because you’re too busy playing Gears and I can’t blame you. But I will give you a list of 8 reasons why you don’t want to miss out on what might be the best THPS game in recent history.

1. Nail the Trick

Nail the Trick first came off to me as gimmicky and unnecessary but now that I’ve tried it I can confidently say that it’s not just another gimmick. It might not be the best way to improve your scores but it’s a nice break from the fast pace of the game. Besides, it feels natural it and it has a realistic feel to it. I’m not saying that it comes close to the real thing but having to put down your left leg and then holding it there to release it when the grip tape is pointing up again to do a kick flip sure is more ‘realistic’ than just hitting left + X. Way better than that Create a Trick thing they introduced in Tony Hawk’s Underground.

Nail the Trick

2. Visuals

Contrary to Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, Tony Hawk’s Project 8 has next-gen worthy graphics. Neversoft really has outdone themselves with great textures, awesome animations, a nice draw distance and a butter smooth framerate to boot. It might not be in the same league as Gears of War but it’s easy on the eyes. Especially the overbright effect used in the Focus and Nail the Trick modes look great. Too bad the bail physics are kinda quirky.

3. No more Jackass or corky 80’s stuff

Finally Neversoft got some sense in them and ripped out all the over-the-top Jackass stuff and they didn’t even replace it with a forced ‘punk’ image. Sure Bam Margera is still on the roster but the demo indicates that we won’t get ‘throw tomatoes at bystanders’. I’ve been longing for a ‘normal’ Tony Hawk game ever since THPS4 and it looks as though we’re finally going to get it. The story line revolves about you trying to make it into Tony Hawk’s ‘Project 8’, nothing silly, just you making it up to the ladder, trying to land a spot among the best 8 skaters in town.

Score Challenge

4. Xbox Live

Sure it’s not the first Tony Hawk game to have Live support but I never had Live on the original Xbox and I didn’t bother with the crappy American Wasteland port so this will be the first time I play THPS on Live. I can’t wait to play some Graffiti with 7 buddies. Also, the game has 100 leaderboards. I spent most of my time in the demo to try to get on the Highest Combo leaderboard and I can’t wait to see what other leaderboards the game has in store.

All new walls mode

5. Angel of Death

I consider the THPS2 soundtrack to be the best soundtrack in a video game ever. It introduced me to bands as Lagwagon and Millencolin, bands that changed my taste in music forever. After THPS2 the soundtracks got kinda lame, THPS3 had Redman and to make it even worse Neversoft got bands as My Chemical Romance and the rest of the Vagrant Records roster to butcher awesome bands such as Gorilla Biscuits, Minor Threat and Bad Brains on the American Wasteland soundtrack. The THP8 might not be as good as THPS2’s but having Slayer’s Angel of Death makes it a damn good competitor.

6. Line-up

Not only does THP8 have 11 pro skaters including personal favourites such as THPS veteran Rodney Mullen and Daewon Song, Neversoft also included 100 real amateur skaters. Neversoft put their new motion capturing studio to good use by capturing 45 skaters. And the motion capture data isn’t just used to make the game look awesome, you can also view about 50 tricks done by real pro’s in the Pro Trick mode. You can speed up, slow down and view the tricks from every angle as you desire.

Rodney Mullen

7. Replayability

First of all the game has over 200 goals, most of them are can be completed in Amateur, Pro and Sick difficulty. Then there’s ‘Spot Challenges’ scattered, challenging you to grind/manual/jump a certain a certain distance, also with Amateur, Pro and Sick ranks. If that’s not enough then you can impress bystanders by doing tricks in front of them to earn you ‘Stokens’. Stokens can be used to buy certain items with, probably clothing, special moves, and the aforementioned Pro Tricks.

8. It’s huge

Neversoft finally did what they promised to do in American Wasteland. Where American Wasteland had stupid corridors you had to skate through to get from one area to the next, THP8 has a huge open streaming world, not unlike games as GTA. Don’t tell me you weren’t impressed when the camera panned out at the end of the demo. The areas will consist of areas from earlier THPS games. According to Wikipedia we’ll see “…an amalgamation of just about every level in the early THPS games. So Suburbia, the Airport and School (I, II and University) are all interconnected and part of the same town”. Sweet!

All in all I think THP8 has a good shot at becoming my second favourite THPS game, right after THPS2. Of course I can’t be a 100 percent certain until I play the final product, there’s still a slim chance that Neversoft manages to screw up the game somehow but I’ll be sure to pick this game up day one and I’ll provide you with an extensive review as soon as I can. Until then head over to the Xbox Live Marketplace to checkout the game’s demo, you won’t be sorry.

THPS8 is scheduled for the 7th of November for the US and the 17th of November for EU on Xbox 360, Xbox, Playstation 2 and PSP.