A great deal of frustration from several sources will keep you from enjoying this game as much as you might expect.
In Tony Hawk's Project 8, Tony Hawk has a new project (called Project 8 shockingly) in which he is searching for the top 8 unknown skaters in the town of Beaverville. You hope to earn your spot in that top 8. That's pretty much all there is to the story. Of course, who plays a skating game for the story (except when there's comedy)?
Tony Hawk's Project 8 has made a complete jump to the next gen. The graphics are impressive, with beautifully, richly detailed environments covered with graffiti and things of that nature. One of the most impressive aspects of the graphics is the water, which looks astounding and ripples realistically as you run or skate through it. However, there are also some clipping errors every now and then. In addition, the framerate can drop significantly at times.
Project 8 has an acceptable soundtrack, which may be appealing to someone who likes metal (not me), but I'm not sure. There are also some nice rap tracks on the playlist. The voice acting is surprisingly impressive, thanks to contributions from a bunch of the real skating pros.
Tony Hawk's Project 8 breathes new life into the Tony Hawk series with the "Nail the Trick" mechanic, which is one of the most addicting and entertaining devices I have ever seen in a skating game. Nail the Trick mode allows you to, in slo-mo, pull of some amazing combos simply by moving the analog sticks. It's a simple mechanic that produces awesome results. This alone is enough to make this game great.
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with Project 8. Maybe I suck at skating games, but I find Project 8 to be extremely hard. This is strange since I found every single other Tony Hawk game to be a cinch. Even the amateur goals were incredibly difficult for me and caused me greats amounts of frustration and strife. Of course, I may simply be rusty - I haven't played a Tony Hawk game in a while.
Also, there are some terribly frustrating errors that can occur, although extremely rarely. Sometimes, when performing an invert trick, you will successfully land the trick, but then immediately bail and go flying into the air. This causes you to fail the trick you just performed. Although this occurs rarely, I hope it is fixed in a patch since it can really screw you up at times.
Tony Hawk's Project 8 is a great game with a new innovative mode that is tons of fun. However several errors and an overkill difficulty cause a great more deal of frustration than you might expect.