Proving Ground rejects a wealth of tried and true ideas from previous titles, making it insufferable for longtime fans.
As stated before, the story of Proving ground is not up to snuff with previous titles. The gist of the entire story is to simply build up the player character (by using a character creator as shallow as a kiddie pool, by the way) from an everyman street-skating punk who isn't all that mystified by meeting famous skaters to something or another. When all is said and done, a skate video montage is made of all the pros that have been impressed and, well, that's all. To be honest, there's barely even a story.
On the front of gameplay, Proving Ground fails to deliver. Other than all the controls being a bit goofy to manage (chiefly through being unresponsive at times), there's barely anything interesting to accomplish. Fantastic ideas from previous games failed to make the cut such as create-a-trick, create-a-park (although a modest space is reserved to make one), creating custom gaps, the Special bar (which has been replaced by being able to activate a special trick at any time), and skitching on the back of cars. Also, there is plenty of wasted potential in the gaps given which makes pulling off feats that should have been rewarded with a bonus feel like simply moving on to the next object.
Technical issues are also a glaring flaw which further tarnish Proving Ground. Objects phasing into one another, conflicting glitches with character creation objects, and freezing of the game entirely are all serious issues that become prevalent at a discomforting pace. At times the system will need to load more of the area and, since the game area is one giant level, the entire thing may freeze up for a second or two with some annoying music hiccups or even crashing.
Regardless of the aforementioned flaws, Proving Ground does have novel ideas, the most prominent of which being Rigging. In Rigging, the player is allowed to add generic rails, kickers, and halfpipes to any part of the game area. Although being able to modify any portion of the map does seem like an enticing idea at first, its let down by the fact that the entire system is sporadic. At times there will be places where placing an object would seem logically possible but sometimes the game will not allow the object to be placed for some arbitrary reason. Also, "modding" objects already in place is a relatively unrewarding experience due to not obtaining any kind of reward for doing so.
Nail-The-Manual is another good idea that never seemed to have been worked out correctly. Entertaining at first, NTM is a nifty little addition that works in the same way that Nail-The-Trick and Nail-The-Grab does. Sounds of the wheels slowly rolling across the floor give off a mesmerizing effect and the amount of possibilities that come with NTM are decent at the very least but, sadly, the feature is not without problems. The greatest issue in NTM is that the camera will, at least over half the time, get in the way of the board. Simple objects such as fire hydrants, planters, and street curbs will either cause the camera to either zoom too far away or come in too close, which obscures what needs to be seen all too well.
As far as the soundtrack is concerned, Proving Ground has to have the worst in the series. With the exception of 8 or so tracks, the entire list is comprised of either unbearably poppy tunes or generic rock, metal, rap, etc. Although the quality of the soundtrack centers around taste, the biggest issue with the sound is that custom soundtracks are not allowed, forcing the player to either bear with the songs or shut off the music entirely and listen to music through another device.
In conclusion, Proving Ground feels like a lackluster entry into what was an excellent series. Shoddily, lazily, and poorly done, its impossible to recommend to longtime fans of the series, let alone anyone who has played a Tony Hawk game since one of the Underground iterations. As a whole, Proving Ground should simply be avoided.