Price: £49.99 Players: Offline 1-2, Online 2-8 Widescreen: Yes Dolby Digital 5.1: Yes Xbox Live content: Yes 60 Hz: Yes (only) When you load up a game from this professional skater you know what to expect and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground is no exception. It does exactly what it says on the tin. One of the first things you get to attempt is build tracks and then riding through them. This is known as 'Rigging'. No, it's got nothing to do with pirates on the South Seas, ooh me hearty, it's about rigging kit to build ramps etc. to complete a stunt. The 'Career' mode includes learning how to grind, including a section called Nail The Trick, such as going down a stair rail. The 'Hardcore' teaches you how to perform the Aggro trick and overall there's all manner of other challenges to accomplish.

As you progress you'll unlock bonus movies and pro footage, as well as new gear, new skills and skill points. Basically, if you're a fan of this type of game then there's a shedload of achievements to accomplish and along the way you'll see training videos from real stars of the sport. For me, I'm not massively into it but it's still a daft bit of fun. The graphics of the environments look okay but don't feel anything much improved upon the original Xbox ones. Sound is perfectly reasonable for atmosphere as it goes round all your speakers, but there's nothing outstanding for your aural senses other than it simply being loud. The movement of your character as you walk about is a little bit erratic as well. Get a trick badly wrong and your man really does look like he's in need of a new spine as he lies in a crumpled heap on the ground! :) The groovy music you can play in the background includes that of the Rolling Stones' Sympathy For The Devil and Xbox Live gameplay is available if that's your bag but I don't have a Gold subscription. Another addition, albeit not a Tony Hawk one, is to play a demo of Guitar Hero 3 (see an amusing demo of this on Something for the Weekend) I was hoping to put some footage online of this game, but it's 60Hz-only so I can't, even though the box doesn't mention this.

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT OVERALL Review copyright © Dom Robinson, 2007.