I've always admired skaters. My one attempt at skateboarding ended up with me quickly speeding down a slope, unable to figure out how to stop, and me bailing into the grass so I didn't kill myself. Thankfully, Tony Hawk decided to make games, and helped the unskilled like me live out their boarding dreams. I'll never be able to pull off the 300 that Tony did, which still ranks as one of the coolest moments ever for me, but the game helps me come close.

After so many games in the series, you'd think by now that Tony Hawk and Neversoft would've run out of tricks, but time and time again they still manage to incorporate some things that typically manage to make each new game a new experience than the rest.

On the basic level, Tony Hawk's Project 8 remains the same. As a wannabe skater, which you'll be able to create to your liking, you'll engage in a story mode, which this time around seems to be becoming the number one skater in the world, and joining Tony Hawk's skate team. For the preview the only level available was a skate park, which wasn't too huge, but gave enough space for exploration and pulling off large tricks, complicated grinds across multiple edges or even power lines, and filling the place with enough NPCs to make the place feel alive and yet not make you mad by constantly having them get in your way.

Controls are also your standard Tony Hawk controls, with the A-button being used to charge you up and jump, the Y-button being for grinds, the X-button being for flips, the B-button used for holds, and the left trigger causing you to flip over. And like the past games, learning to become one with the controls and being able to flawlessly link one to the next for combos is what you'll need to do to amass some truly outrageous scores. One way to continue this chain is by doing a manual when you have a long stretch that would break your score, and manuals are accomplished by quickly pressing one direction on the control stick and then the opposite. The directional pad controls the best for me, though the thumbstick is a bit iffy in regards to pressing it in the direction for you to get the moves you want, but you'll need to master it because some of the most fun comes from what happens when you click the thumbsticks in.

New to the series is the Nail The Trick mode, which has you creating your own tricks on the fly. To get the game to go into Nail The Trick, first you'll have to jump in the air or get airborne in general, and then click both thumbsticks in at the same time. Once both sticks are pressed, the game slows down into a Matrix styled bullet-time mode that zooms in real close to your feet and the board. The first time I discovered the mode, I had no idea what to do, but after taking on a challenge I learned the ropes, and now I can't stop perfecting my own trips. As you are slowing down, imagine that your left thumbstick controls your left foot and your right thumbstick controls your right, and this will give you a good idea what you have to do. For one thing, you have to be careful with your moves, because should you knock the board out of play, you'll come crashing to the ground; plus, you must actually land on the board by ending Nail The Trick on the top of your board. While in slow-mo you can kick your board over horizontally, vertically, top spin it on both the deck and tires, etc. Nail The Trick is ideal for high scores, as the game suggests that you merge it with your ordinary tricks for the best scores, and Nail The Trick is a great way to end a chain while you are ending a grind in particular.

There are several different ways to play. If you simply want to blow some time and skate, you can cruise the levels and just grind on whatever you see, trick over whatever you want, and basically just live the life of a skater. If you choose to compete in the Story Mode, you'll run across both players, like one in the preview who teaches you how to Nail The Trick, by making you first perform a couple routine tricks to get a feel for the new move, and then challenging you to nail a 3000 combo in the mode you just learned. You'll also find various icons floating above the ground, featuring different modes, such as one where a guy wants to videotape you to give you some exposure, and you have to perform the moves he asks of you so you can get the most points possible. And for those who miss the old Tony Hawk style, where you skated a level in certain times, looking to gather letters and complete point challenges, there are quests like that within the game as well. Those are only a few of the gameplay quests, but there are many more.

The graphics are also very nice, as the skate park looks exactly like you'd imagine one, plus the character models are nicely detailed. The big draw with the graphics, however, not comes in how pretty they are, but by how ugly you can make them, meaning tearing yourself up by wrecking badly. Featuring a great physics engine, Tony Hawk's Project 8 lets you crash in some truly gnarly ways, and I even winced at a few and said, "Owwww!" I also loved how when after a bad spill, the game would tally up how bad you got hurt, by telling how much your hospital bill would've cost – I think the highest bill at one time I managed was about $20,000 something.

The music of Tony Hawk's Project 8 is also straight out of the skater community, as it sounded like it featured a bunch of more indie/punk bands, though I could've sworn I heard a Primus song stuck somewhere in there. If you're already a skater, you'll probably own a lot of these songs, but if you aren't, don't worry, because the music works well with the game and doesn't appear as if it will wear out its welcome on your nerves.

After playing the game, I'm already starting to feel like a pro, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go head out and tackle that slowly declining hill again. Instead, I think I'll just stick to Tony Hawk's Project 8, and live the high life from the safety of my own bedroom, without having to worry about recovering from that $14, 235 dollar fall my in-game avatar just got up from in a matter of seconds. Skate on Tony, skate on.