There comes a time in everybody's life - never mind whom you are or what you believe - that you realise you're in the presence of absolute beauty. It might be while reading the mesmerising landscapes sculpted by Thomas Hardy's words. It might be Joseph Turner's ability to create light with oils. It might be the sight of a daffodil covered in the dew of a spring morning. For me it's Tony Hawk's Project 8's 'Nail the Trick' mode. Ignore the somewhat cumbersome vulgar pronoun and indulge me. Never before has a game displayed such an amazing array of beautiful colours - a real life wide-awake dream. More over the focus of this splendour is a pair of feet, clad in licensed pumps, and a battered skateboard. Still, I challenge anyone to find a gaming moment that rivals Nail the Trick mode.

There is a point to it also: basically the camera trains on your deck and the sticks on the 360 pad control each of 'your' tootsies. You perform tricks depending on how you manipulate the sticks - each one controlling a separate foot. It is possible to potentially create your own manoeuvres as well as performing the customary kick flips. The real trick up the sleeve though is that you can enter this slow-mo dream any time you make some air, even if it's a just an olly - although obviously the time you have to pull off what ever trick it is that your compulsion dictates depends on how much air you get. Whatever - it's a level of genius that won't be rivalled for a bundle of time. It's also this sort of thing that graphically sets a game apart from the majority of the dribble out there...

... However despite the coolness of Nail the Trick, it does pose something of a quandary - other than looking amazing it doesn't have much of a point if gameplay's your thing. It is excellent to include in a combo to impress onlookers, but doesn't actually do much other than look the part. You gain no extra yard or reward for doing it and in fact it actually makes the combo all that more difficult to pull off given that you have to click both sticks to enter the mode. Nail the Trick isn't essential to the game in the same way that manuals and spine transfers were when they were introduced; while it's been billed as the next transition for Tony Hawk's games it's little more than a very attractive garnish - although there's never been a better example of what the is capable of.

Project 8's world is further testament to next-generation gaming's lure. A lot has been made of a gaming world free from loading screens, a place where everything is skatable and the only limits placed are those that would be realistically impossible. If you forgive the usual ramps placed everywhere it feels as if there's a real world at your kickflipping feet. The level planning is genius: while on first play a single street might look like any other, a bit of idle investigation will open up a myriad of opportunities - such is the arrangement of the environment. Given that there are a billion streets all different from the rest the potential for trickery is unbelievable. There are obvious 'skate lines' to follow but they're disguised enough to not look out of place.

The size of the map is something of a bane. The 'what do I do now' factor kicks in. While you can waste plenty of time performing tricks - in fact it becomes something of a compulsion - as you skate around, the huge scale brinks on edges of daunting. The radar, along with the customary green arrow at the top of screen acts as your guide to events and challenges, however given the unpredictability and realistic nature it's not always easy to follow direction. There are buildings, steep hills, forests, and people almost constantly in the way of your objectives - while this is fine in its self, the navigation system is hindered in its purpose, especially later on where you have a number of challenges to choose between.

And so to the challenges. The verdict is still a bit hazy. They range from the realistic to the surreal. Where impressing the locals with a high score or double backflip seems believable, performing life threatening tricks and collecting floating S-K-A-T-E as a part of a demo to promote an insane estate agent doesn't sit comfortably. As such Project 8 is at times a bit awkward, not knowing whether it's a genuine sim or a comedic parody. There is some really polished stuff in there though - the challenges that involve you performing tricks on camera to build up your reputation work extremely well - you appear in videos and magazines thus increasing your chances of becoming a top eight skater and making it into Tony Hawk's skate team 'Project 8'. Is that a penny I hear dropping?

So that's the goal, work your way up from an unknown with a bundle of skill in order to impress Mr Hawk enough to let you skate for him. You move up the rankings more or less by skating around and impressing the right people. It's possible to move up a healthy amount (you start at 200) without completing a single challenge: scattered around the map are 'local lines', manuals, tricks etc. If you better those records you claim the line for yourself, your reputation increases and you move up. It works especially well and the lines are everywhere and you can attempt them at anytime.

Project 8 is certainly a beautiful game. The Nail the Trick mode underlines the term 'next generation gaming', though once you get over the glaze it never quite lives up to the billing. The massive town and all it's skateable amenities remain impressive and the challenges are attainable once you get to grips with methods of high scoring. However, despite all this, it's massively familiar. The polished look is distracting, but it's impossible to hide Neversoft's pessimism in going back to the basics that made the first batch of games entertaining all those years ago. Certainly the series lost it's way with the Jackass influenced Wasteland, however there's nothing new about the way Project 8 plays if you omit the beautiful coating.

This said, Project 8 is still infinitely playable and any fan of the series will find it a greatly rewarding experience...

80%

By Gary Flavell

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