Tony Hawk's Proving Ground

Proving Ground is the ninth installment of the Tony Hawk franchise. It was developed by Neversoft for the PS3 and Xbox 360, by Page 44 Studios for the PS2 and Wii, and by Vicarious Visions for the Nintendo DS. It was released in October 2007.

There are three locations in Proving Ground: Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, DC. Skate classes are broken down into career, rigger, hardcore, and unlockable. Career skaters include skateboard greats such as Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist and Ryan Sheckler. Rigger skaters include Bam Margera and Rodney Mullen, while hardcore skaters have Andrew Reynolds and Mike Vallely in its ranks. Each class of skaters has their own special abilities. For instance, while career skaters have the Nail-the-Manual or Nail-the-Grab modes, hardcore skaters get Aggro moves including kicking and pushing.

In addition to the single player, skaters can go online and play all the traditional Tony Hawk game modes with other players, including Trick Attack, Graffiti and Walls. It should be noted that it is difficult to get into online matches on the PS3 and X360 versions of the game, and that results in only the diehard Tony Hawk fans playing.

Proving Ground is one of the first Tony Hawk games to have competition, meaning a competing game on the market. With Proving Ground being very similar to Project 8, most critics have called this game uninnovative and simply a "more of the same" sequel. Some might blame this on the ludicrus schedule to make this game (having the team work for about a year). Also, after seeing the games reactions by the market, the team has decided to take a year off to "re-engineer and reconstruct the Tony Hawk series".

Soundtrack

The following tracks are available on every system but the DS.

Airbourne - "Girls in Black"
 Angels & Airwaves - "Secret Crowds"
 Anglo Jackson - "Motorbike"
 At the Gates - "Slaughter of the Soul"
 Beastie Boys - "Electric Worm"
 Blackalicious - "Your Move"
 Bloc Party - "Version 2.0"
 Cursed - "The Hands Will Abide"
 Cymande - "Fug"
 Dag Nasty - "Circles"
 Darkest Hour - "Sanctuary"
 Deadbolt Zen - "Everything Changes"
 Divine Era - "The Sound Of Words"
 DJ JS-1 (featuring L.I.F.E. Long & Immortal Technique) - "Audio Technician"
 El-P - "Up All Night"
 Folk Implosion - "Natural One"
Foo Fighters- "The Pretender" 

Fu Manchu - "We Must Obey"

 Funky 4 1 - "Rappin and Rockin the House"
 Future Pigeon - "Gift Tax"
 Gallows - "Come Friendly Bombs"
 Gorilla Biscuits - "Hold Your Ground"
 Jimmy Castor Bunch - "It's Just Begun"
 Jurassic 5 - "Radio"
 Kittens - "Carpenter"
 Lyrics Born (featuring KRS-One and Evidence) - "Pack Up (Remix)"
 Maylene and the Sons of Disaster - "Memories of the Grove"
 Nation of Ulysses - "You're My Miss Washington D.C."
 Oh No (featuring J Dilla and Roc C) - "Move, Pt. 2"
 Paint It Black - "The New Brutality"
 Paris - "The Devil Made Me Do It (Poach a Pig Mix)"
 Percee P - "Throwback Rap Attack (Madlib Remix)"
 Pierce the Veil - "I'd Rather Die Than Be Famous"
 Pig Destroyer - "Loathsome"
 Reverend Horton Heat - "Baddest of the Bad"
 Roots Manuva - "Chin High"
 Silversun Pickups - "Well Thought Out Twinkles"
 Slick Rick - "Children's Story"
 Snapcase - "Energy Dome"
 The Amelia Premiere - "Disintegrate"
 The Bled - "Starving Artiste"
 The Cramps - "Garbage Man"
 The Icarus Line - "Gets Paid"
 The Rolling Stones - "Sympathy for the Devil"
 Twilight 22 - "Electric Kingdom"
 Voltera - "It Beats for You"

The following tracks are available on the DS version.

!!! - "All My Heroes Are Weirdos"
 The Sex Pistols - "Holidays in the Sun"
 The Smashing Pumpkins - "Tarantula"
 The Kooks - "See the World"
 The Octopus Project - "Music Is Happiness"
 The Clash - "Clash City Rockers"
 Sayvinyl - "That's Entertainment"
 Revolution Mother - "Come On"
 Nirvana - "Breed"
 Motorcity Daredevils - "Bear in the Air"
 Los Abandoned - "Panic-Oh!"
 Foo Fighters - "The Pretender"
 Bad Brains - "Banned in DC"