E3 2006 First Look Preview
The
Tony Hawk franchise has held a monopoly on the extreme sports genre for some
time now, selling millions of copies in seven prior years. However, the series
has begun to get a little stagnant in recent years, as the series seemingly has
nowhere to go but down from here. However, Neversoft is looking to rectify this
situation by taking their Tony Hawk franchise and building it from the ground
up, making for a whole new experience on next-gen consoles. The game will take
advantage of all the perks of next-generation hardware, with realistic physics
and superb character models and animations. Get ready for the new Tony Hawk this
fall.
The
storyline in Tony Hawk’s Project 8 follows the Birdman as he sets out in search
of the top eight amateur skaters in the world. You’ll encounter realistic
locations populated with skaters and pedestrians alike, all of whom will react
dynamically to your skills. If you’re really good, they’ll rally behind you, but
if you bail a lot, they’re more likely to chase you out of town.
As I
said earlier, Project 8 is a complete graphical rewrite. The game will use bloom
lighting effects and motion blur, and the character models are realistically
mapped using the real-life skaters themselves. The development team didn’t stop
there, however. They specially recorded motion capture info of all the skaters
in the game, recording how they ollie, land their jumps, balance manuals and so
on. They are capable of rendering twenty animations at once on a character in
the game, which gives the game an amazing amount of details.
Even
though Tony Hawk’s Project 8 is setting up to rebuild the series on next-gen
consoles, the game will be available across the PSP, PS2 and Xbox, although
Activision remained tight-lipped on the details of the current-gen versions.
Look for all versions to ship this fall.
