To add some further insult to the no Open-World on PS 2 injury: About 6 Months before Proving Grounds released, the PS 2 and PSP Ports of Test Drive Unlimited where released, a Open World Racing game that uses the entire Island of Oʻahu, Hawaii as it´s Map. And by entire Island I´m not talking about just the road network, but really the entire Island. And it allowed you to teleport to any road you already discovered without the need of a long loading time. So yeah, there really is no excuse what so ever for them not implementing the whole Open World Map.

It feels so good to hear a guy other than me showering this game in praise. It's too far overlooked and overhated.

Underrated game. Obviously at the time it came out most of us were completely hooked on Skate, but Proving Ground got a lot more hate than it deserved I feel like

Finally someone gives this game the respect it deserves

This game is very underrated, I liked it more than Project 8, the story is just so good.

The fact that the DS version runs at 60fps is honestly really impressive.

Along with SSX and Amped you could check out 1080° and Stoked and the Shaun White games

I feel like this game takes many of the best aspects of previous games and improves upon them in a big way. It's hugely underrated in the series and this video really has me wanting to replay it

I love how you said proving ground feels like it could be underground 3, I always got that impression by the name itself, proving ground. Idk lol but cool to know I’m not alone

Most underrated Tony Hawk game . This was my third entry to the series as a kid and it truly felt like Underground 3 just built off of the project 8 engine. Is it perfect? No, but it was the direction the series should’ve kept going in.

"C'mon, man! You telling me you can't clear that?"-Mike V

Brooo massive respect to the effort and hard work you put into these vids! It’s so refreshing getting your opinions on these games cuz of how unique they are. Like you said: “everyone has their own taste”. I was an immature teenager when this came out, and I never paid any attention to the story or the finer details. I just went off my overall first impressions which were that the game looked gloomy and lacked the crazy variety of different levels. I pawned the game after beating it, and moved on. Now I’m gonna hunt it down and appreciate it with a new perspective on the overall feel that the game was going for. You’re breathing new life into this dead franchise for me, and that’s friggin amazing. Keep doin the dang thang G🙌💯

I sung this games praise my whole life it was a big part in teaching me so much about skateboarding culture and the music helped me find some of my favourite bands

I grew up with the DS version of this game. My uncle put it on an R4 card he gave me and i remember it being really fun for what it was

Proving ground is prolly still my favorite. PS3 versions the one I’ve always played. I just love that nail the trick mechanic.

Been watching these videos fairly regularly since your channel has been recommended to me quite a bit. These videos are great and you have earned yourself a subscriber. I am also glad to see a review of Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground that properly shows why this game is genuinely great.

Can’t wait to watch this. This is my favorite TH game! Your videos are like comfort food to me. 🤘🏻

I remember a few years ago, going through a crappy breakup and had to sell my 360 to pay rent. My mate lent me his PS2 and i bought whatever games my local pawnshop had for the system and Proving Ground happened to be one of them. I went in with 0 expectations, but was pleasantly surprised by the game. It wasn't the best for sure, but it entertained me enough through a difficult time and i also genuinely love the soundtrack, even if some of the song choices are ...strange (one track seems to be from a band that literally has no other songs, and pretty much zero presence online) Maybe I enjoyed it more because i expected nothing, but it sits among my top 5 THPS games for sure

love Proving Ground. Underrated gem 💎 also thank you for shouting our Future Pigeon, classic dub reggae band with the cleanest recordings.

Another fantastic video lad! I had a similar experience to you, I only played this game like 4 years ago just on a whim and honestly I wasn't a fan haha. I got the PS3 version which runs not too bad but I hadn't played next gen port of P8 and was baffled by the physics and tuning. For some reason even though I didn't enjoy it, I kept coming back and playing, just free-skating around. Eventually it all clicked and it's in my top 3 THPS games. It honestly reminds me the most of the first game on PS1, not because of the phsyics or how it's programmed or anything like that. But the believable feeling of landing into transition, more difficult balance metres, or clearing a gap just FEELS so much more immersive and grounded. Which might sound odd when talking about this franchise since THPS is considered arcadey now, but it WAS the most realistic skate game until Skate 1 came out, even then it wasn't until Skate 3 came out in 2010 those games stopped being niche. This game has a lot of interesting mechanics that I never see brought up, like how you can manual wallpush off of walls, poles, cars and even peds lol. I think what made me "get" the semi-realistic gravity in this game was how it's basically impossible to manual up slopes, HOWEVER using the new and improved wallpush you can, and feels like that was it's original intention. I only realised this when trying to manual up between the two stair sets that connect Freedom Plaza and The Mall, which is why they placed little trees in the middle of them so you can wallpush your way up to the top! Another mechanic is the Beanplant you can do before landing by tapping ollie that extends your combo. I think this is a hidden trick and I don't remember if the game ever teaches you it in a goal??? Also it's quite odd they never added the Boned Ollie in Project 8 or Proving Ground when it would suit the realistic feel and allow you to clear waist high obstacles. Oh and skate check mechanic when airbourne is like a Slob Air which is kinda neat to do just as trick. The level design is amazing and almost every level is a banger. The only that's weak is Landsdowne. But I personally love the more down to earth ledges and planters. Also the FDR recreation looks quite faithful. The DS port is pretty great, the skate lounge and customisation like being able to draw your own deck graphic with the stylus makes it stand out. I remember I had the DS port as a child and really loved it. THPS 10 was in development at the tail end of production of this game, and all I know it they remade Tony Hawk's backgarden skatepark as the first level. I do wonder what that game would've been like and how it could have improved and fully shown off how well this engine plays compared to P8. It's a shame Proving Ground never got a native PC port since I think modding could've have fixed performance and adding custom content would gotten more of the community to love this game rather than forget about it. Also shout out to Larxian for porting over the Proving Ground levels into THUGPro, he's a legend! Can't wait for the next video!

after watching the PS3 part of the video I was like “I remember this game being terrible wtf” and then realizing I had played the Wii port. Had no idea there were way better ports

This game had a good mix of easy and accessible lines whilst also allowing you, upon learning the map, to find and slowly master some much more difficult yet rewarding lines. It felt somewhat more grounded in reality than some of the other games but the fun was in the exploration and it had fair replayablity , the carve mechanic, whilst not really needed did help in creating more "real" looking bowl skating i thought. 7 / 10 imo

I need to try this game. I never did, I was one of the people who found Project 8 so jarring that I didn’t even pick this up, but I might now. I didn’t comment on your Project 8 video, I watched it, but I felt like you covered anything I could say. I played on PlayStation 2 which is why I hated it, if I’d played the PS3 or 360 version I would have a different opinion I’m sure. I never had a PS3 but still have my 360 lying around, I’ll be keeping an eye out for a copy of this and Project 8 as well.

I'm kind of weird in that, as someone who had a more positive experience with American Wasteland, I just never got around to picking up Project 8 while it was new so I ended up skipping that entry in the franchise. When Proving Grounds came around I made sure to go pick it up because I figured this would be where all of the new mechanics introduced in the past 2 games would've been at least close to perfected. Proving Grounds is definitely the game I go back to surprisingly often. It's for sure one of if not the most under appreciated game in the franchise however I don't know that I could give it a 10/10. Easily an 8/10 but there are a few things PG is lacking in. I really wish there was more of a "Classic Mode" with updated versions of levels from previous games along with ideally one or two levels exclusive to PG. My only other real gripe with the game is the "Skate Lounge". It just felt like a totally neutered version of Create-A-Park from games as old as THPS2. I do agree that the main story mode is fantastic and the open world although kind of grey and drab is super fun to skate around in. It just bummed me out that the great story mode was all the game had. I would have really loved to play some older levels in the PG engine.

holy shit, someone who sings proving ground's praises, this was always my favorite tony hawk game, it feels so fun to play and there's tons to do, both in terms of mechanics and size of the map. this game gets slept on and overhated so much and it makes me sad this game's soundtrack is easily my favorite in the series too, it has Natural One on it which automatically makes it one of the best

We Still need a jet-set radio and skate video but keep up the good work

This is the only mainline tony hawk game I haven't beat. I hadn't beaten Project 8 (despite having it on release) until last year when I bought a used ps2 copy and I ended up liking it. I had this on ps3.. will probably emulate it and give it another go after I'm done with the games I'm currently playing through. Great video.

Thps was and will alway be my childhood, along with grind session and thrasher s&d .. but thank god for skater xl and session ❤

Proving grounds was my first Tony Hawk game I remember my dad bought it for me one Christmas, some people know Tony Hawk games in the arcade and classic way, I know Tony Hawk because of the story mode and thanks to it it made me skate even the east coast skate scene now is very interesting (not hating on cali etc it’s just too clean for me ). Made fell in love with Tony Hawk I’ve played them all expect Pro for skater 5

Idk why but for me personally, if they had made the whole game in the ps2 graphics/physics with the same attention and quality of the 360/ps3 version it would have been perfect. I just couldn’t get immersed or have as much fun with the next gen physics

I always thought that "slam" thing you keep talking about was just the animation of the skater stretching to land more softly (crouching when. After I saw these games on new-gen, I started thinking the skaters on previous games didn't land smoothly at all. And this game sorta has it too, I think it just might look more like an animation this time when using the classic camera.

This game got so much more hate than it deserved when it came out it was always one of my favorites especially after coming from project 8 and being disappointed with it this was one of the biggest breaths of fresh air as a fan because it was new but has the same formula we know and love but on newer hardware sucks not everyone felt the same way

ok but can we talk about how from 12:19 - 12:23 he perfectly lands in the back of that truck bed hahaha XD love it

this game carried me through my parents divorce

Are you gonna to do the skate series? They really changes the dynamic of the whole genre

_Tony Hawks Proving Ground is a good THPS game👼😈🤷🏾‍♂️_ _I’ve been playing THPS since THPS1 on the PS1_ _Tony Hawks Underground 2 & 1 are LEGENDARY_

They need this story on the new skate game. I loved the story line in proving ground. Able to pick your style in skating

All of my Tony Hawk memories are from the PS2 versions. I will have to try and run it. Project 8 crashed rpcs3 often. I wasn't really a critic before I knew what the internet was

Totally agree with your 10/10. The game world and weather is so true to the east coast. It’s the best controlling. Most fluid TH game. The only reason I hook my PS3 still! And it came out at one of the best times of my life. So extra points there.

Aww I miss these games good times also there is 2 freestyle moto cross games to are Freestyle metal x and crispy demons the game there fun games.

Loved this game so much man

I feel like i should revisit this game. My memory of it was blank but even though i played project 8 a lot(but not as much as thps2 and underground)this video gives me a different outlook on proving ground

Seems like I need to go back to this game. I loved the series up until Project 8. That game kind of threw me off, I didn't play it as much and then Proving Ground came around and in my memory I played it for 20 minutes and then never played it again, because I was still so disappointed about Project 8. Kind of weird now in retrospect, but well.. I think what generally threw me off was the "greyness" of the visuals which you mentioned in the video and the change in the physics from the PS2 games which I loved. In this review it sounds like the modern day Tony Hawk I always wanted, so I may need to revisit the game.

I played the PS2 port when I was younger and it soured me on this game. I have the PS3 port now and I need to play more of it. Also these combos are nutty

Can’t wait till you get to the Skate series.

I had this on the ps3 I remember it being fun as hell but it disappeared not to long after I got it. Didn't get to really get into the career but the skating was fun for sure

the only sins this game really had were the wack grind/manual meter displays and an undersaturated color palette. the maps ported into THUGPro were pretty overwhelming, it really needed some color to give it justice.

Yes!!! Proving ground is the best!

2:05 oh lord WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO TONY?!?

After watching this video, i decided to give this game another try. I have played every single game before it and ive played thugpro pretty much everyday for a long time now. I finally got it to work after some research on my emulator. Its great. It’s actually fantastic. Im sort’ve mad at myself for trashing it based on only reviews and not opinions of my own. Thanks for sharing your mind on this and introducing me to a new game in a series i thought i saw it all from. I even tried project 8 and i also love it lol.

I'll give this a go. 🤘

Game suggestion - Freestyle Metal X PS2

Thug is my favorite n thps3 I second but this is my favorite 3rd being from phillly. It’s a great game

Bro... WHAT?! I like this game a lot and agree it's underrated, but 10/10??!!! There are SO many flaws and imperfections in this game that hold it back. I played the shit out of it. So many of the goal mechanics just don't work correctly. Everything is inconsistent and nothing feels responsive. Stuff like the camera goals not registering consistently. Things not registering you tricked or touched them. The timing and collision for checking feels randomized. The camera whipping around in very disorienting ways. Random unfair bails in the middle of big combos. NTT still being terribly overpowered. It's better than P8, but everything is still just SO imprecise and glitchy compared to the previous engine. Even worse, there are SO MANY goals that depend on some unique mechanic that's just super underbaked, like the camera or checking goals I mentioned. I wish it wasn't the case because there's a lot to love in this game, but the core gameplay is just still not solid enough to support the whole rest of the game. ESPECIALLY the sick goals, which are still total BS and obviously untested.

People that hate on games like Proving Ground and Thug 2 are wild 😂 I love these games.

22:56 if this is your cat can we get a picture on the next video? great stuff as always!!!

when we gonna see the redberylftw street part????

do you play these games on original hardware or do you emulate them? I feel like I've heard you mention it before but I forgot or don't know if you do a mix.

I went so effin ham on this game with my xbox360

I did play this game on the ps2 back in the days. Do I understand well that I will be amazed if I give the Ps3 version a shot?

I've noticed you've got the ghosting from emulating Tony Hawk games in pcsx2. You can fix these in all the games by enabling HW Hacks and ticking Wild Arms offset. Setting texture offset to X = 75 and Y = 150.

aggro kick killed the series, this game might have been good if you didn't constantly blast through everything at 100km/h

i honestly love this game. its just a shame its not backwards compatible for xbox one

Is your voice text to speech or do you actually speak like a robot. It’s eerily robotic yet human I can’t tell. Sick vid tho

This game came with a GH3 demo if you had Xbox 360 version.

Apologies for the literal novel of a comment, but overall I like your channel and I want to see it grow, so this kinda matters to me. This is probably the quickest sub and then unsub I've had in a while. Normally, I'd just unsub and quietly move on, because - as a fellow creator myself - unless content is really vile, I don't like coming in and being a grinch about things. And I don't think your content is vile. I mean... I initially subbed for a reason. But personally, I think it would do your content well to do a couple more editing passes on your more negative sections/reviews, or slow down with the amount of content you produce. My problem isn't that I necessarily disagree with your criticisms, but rather that in several recent videos now, you've taken to these presumptive 'blame game' framings for them. It was THIS person's fault that this was bad, or THAT studio was obviously just being lazy. While there are very rare occasions where 'lazy' is the best way to describe why something turned out the way it did (or a single person is demonstrably responsible for an issue, like Todd Howard lying in Bethesda presentations being a HIM problem), generally calling something 'lazy' is in and of itself is ironically a lazy copout framing for your criticism. It's absolutely okay to make a guess about why a design issue exists. And it's totally okay if those issues REALLY bother you. But it's not doing you any favors to try and pin it on an individual, or some level of 'obvious' incompetence. We do not know what went on with the development during these games. I know you know that game development is complicated. And you seem to be aware of how easily publishers can screw a game's development. So it's frustrating to hear you spend minutes at a time, and sometimes upwards of 50% of your word count in a section just reiterating that you think it's lazy, and this person is awful, and that studio just sucked and didn't know what they were doing, etc. You've done the same with 'mainstream reviewers', in a way that just comes off as gatekeepy, and ill informed. I will be the FIRST to agree that - especially back in the day - games criticism was a well of garbage a lot of the time. But it's a shallow and frankly silly reading to act like they had ill intent, or didn't care, or were just terrible critics. If you look at the state of the industry, the demographics being most strongly catered to, and the comparative infancy games writing was in at the time (and it's still only really catching its stride), then it makes perfect sense why it was unfortunately not that great back in the day. And I think it's much more productive if you're going to mention it, to highlight the shortcomings of it within that kind of context, instead of just acting like it was a bunch of sh*t made by idiots who don't understand skating or games or whatever, you know? It's also INCREDIBLY important to understand the mindset of those times. A good example for me was how many reviews of late PS1 games heavily criticized them for not looking like PS2 games... something that's obviously impossible to rectify. But not only was technological understanding in general at a far lower level at that point, it made some sense (even though it's still weak criticism) within the context of how fast 3D visuals were moving at that time. After playing something like FFX, something like THPS3 on PS1 would've felt shockingly outdated, right? When people criticized something like the 'lack of innovation' or whatever in a game like Evolution Skateboarding, you have to remember they didn't have hindsight. They were living in a world where dozens of extreme sports games were coming out every year, for full price. And since they were doing consumer oriented reviews, they had to have some way to differentiate between what might've been worth your money. Doesn't mean they can't be wrong. But it does mean it's kind of unfair to just assume their intentions were bad, or they were stupid people. You have shown that you are capable of far stronger criticisms than a lot of these ones you've dwelled on in videos lately. And you've also shown that you're capable of making those criticisms sound less needlessly hostile, and more concise. So especially when the likely culprit is staring you in the face (like Page 44 having to develop both the Wii and PS2 ports of Proving Ground, on an old engine, with an obviously low budget, probably a very small studio, and in just a year), it just comes off as silly when you assume there's some extreme level of incompetence going on in the background. I hope this is helpful in some way, and if you wanna talk about it or games or whatever somewhere, you can hit me up on Discord, or reply to me here with yours and I'll hit you up. Though I understand if instead you think I'm a bit of a butthead, hahaha.

Putting my P.S. upfront as a TLDR: This comment ballooned HARD, but i took significant umbrage with the majority of your coverage of the PS2 version of the game. Feel free to completely ignore, but i'd say it's worthwhile that you read it. I don't disagree the PS2 version is bad, but i disagree with your assessment of Page 44. I played the demo for this on Xbox 360 and owned the PS2 version. Vehemently hated both at the time. My only experience with Proving Ground that's been positive is watching Nightspeeds play it. After hearing your high praise for the 7th gen version, i'm thinking i'll have to give it another chance. Honestly, if i were project lead on a hypothetical THUG 3 or THPS 6, i'd have made some of the same decisions Neversoft did making this. Side note/obnoxious rant: Comparing the lack of an open world in the PS2 port to the open world in Morrowind on Xbox is unfair at best. Bethesda A: had 6 years to make their game as opposed to less than 1, and B: had to implement seamlessly rebooting the Xbox into the loading procedure to make their port work. That's not something i'd expect from Neversoft on a 1 year dev cycle, let alone the folks who got given release candidate builds of the 7th gen version to build their game from. Even then, the cell culling system in Morrowind functions on a game of that size because the Xbox could stream data as needed from the horrifically slow DVD to the much faster hard drive. It's the reason Final Fantasy XI works on PS2, but requires a hard drive. Imagine if Tony Hawk's Proving Ground for PS2 was one of a selection of under 10 games that REQUIRED a hard drive in an era where the PS2 slim was the only model being sold. "Rebuilding" the maps to fit the hardware WAS the cheap option, and likely took significantly less time, and thus money, than you think as the models for the maps already existed and just needed tweaks to close them off. Additionally, the reason NFS and GTA games could get away with open worlds on PS2 is because they're SIGNIFICANTLY less dense, lower poly, and have worse textures than any of the maps in Proving Ground PS2. I already mentioned the example of Final Fantasy XI, but for another example: Yakuza by Sega has about as dense and high fidelity a world as this game does, and even with multiple years of dev time, it didn't have a no-loads/hidden-loads fully open world that detailed on PS2. Yes, the PS2 could be made to run Proving Ground's full map, but given the PS3 had been out for over a year and the Xbox 360 over 2 at that point, and how few PS2s would actually be able to play it due to the requirement of a $100 add on that the systems on sale at the time couldn't use, making it happen for the then-last gen version of the game doesn't make sense. THPG PS2 is very clearly a bad game, but I don't think you're giving Page 44 the credit they're due based on misconceptions of how complicated porting games actually is. You acknowledge they were a studio in over their head on this port, yet still expected them to deliver more than they were VERY CLEARLY capable of. That's incredibly unfair, and being glad dozens of people you don't know lost their jobs is kinda shitty, especially when they were a support studio on a game you praised: Freekstyle.

The only version I've played to this day is the DS version.. guess I'll try it on a better suited console lol

This game rocks, but im annoyed that i can't play as a woman

Am I the only one who things the ps2 version looks better? xD

project 8 on psp was great, like thug 2 with slow down for flip tricks. on console it absolutely sucks.

project 8 made me lose faith in the franchise. Wish this would have came out before

You're pushing Mongo in the Skate footage at the beginning of the video. Cwinge. Lol

loooots of what you said abt game dev just. isn’t true. rly puts a hamper on rightful criticisms with the “i know more than you” tone

Tony Hawk's Aggro Kick. The grey game. Oh man, the ps2 footage is rough. Is PCSX2 doing this? Are there no fixes on the Wiki? On the console it's not like this graphically and I don't remember framerate issues. Proving Ground may be functional better, but it's forgettable all around. I played it through. The ps3/360 version and ps2 versions. But I can't remember anything from the story because it's that forgettable. As I said, it evolved from Project 8's bad writing and made it even worse and Nail the sh*t is still the worst thing. Aggro Kick is the only good thing about the last 2 Neversoft TH games. And even the PS2 port textures look better than the grey counterpart. And there is one thing that makes it far different from the others (at least here). It got dubbed. THPS3 was the last game that was dubbed in German until this (and 1+2). Maybe it was so bad that the story was even worse because of it xD

No Girls Allowed.. THAW: At least you can create one for free skate and classic mode. THP8: At least create a girl is PS3 and XBOX 360 exclusive.

Physics and mechanics were clunky and awful, graphics were't the worst but the artistic and colour design was horrendous.. I can't really think of anything good for me personally about either P8 or PG, Tony Hawk games died for me after American Wasteland. I grew up with THPS3/THPS4, THUG/THUG2 and THAW, if they had of kept that engine and just made new HD visuals for the new systems at the time I probably would think different about these games. Not that it's connected, but seeing you mongo push at the start in the Skate gameplay is hard to watch ngl.