Tony Hawk's Project 8

He was a punk

Hopefully this emphasises quite how vast Project 8 is. There are hundreds of missions, uninterrupted by loading, and all instantaneously restartable (if you ever played Trackmania, you'll know how gratifying it is to be able to immediately start over after failing a tough task, and Project 8 nails this too).

The cast of pros is nice and fresh. Lots of the most impressive new talent stand alongside masters like Hawk and Rodney Mullen. The incredible Ryan Scheckler and Daewon Song appear, along with wunderkind Nyjah Huston, underlining the embracing of the next generation in every imaginable sense. Each spent time motion-capturing themselves for their specific moves (unlockable video footage of this is also to be found), adding to the authenticity. There's Bam Margera of course, but this time looking like the odd boy out, offering his stunt-focused brand of challenges as a refreshing alternative, rather than their domineering frustration in Underground 2. And oddly, Jason Lee is a major character, involved in acquiring you sponsorship, and alerting you to new competitions appearing around the town.

And she did ballet

So there you have it: Tony Hawk Project 8 is the best the series has ever been. And that's without Nail The Trick/Glistening Dew mode.

At any point while in the air, clicking those analogue sticks slows down time, and zooms in on the skateboard and your feet. At this point, each analogue stick represents one of your feet. Flick down with the left stick, and your left foot will push the board down. Catch the lip with the right stick as it rotates and you'll kick it in a circle. It's incredibly tricky at first, the timing needing to be perfect, and the bailing failure frequent. But then, it clicks. It makes sense. And then it's sheer, crazed bliss. Get enough air and you can pull off the most astonishing moves, and not because you pressed X, but because you moved your foot at the exact right moment to be that awesome. It puts you completely in control, removing the automated cheatery of all action gaming. As you see yourself descending, fast approaching the half-pipe's wooden surface, make sure the board has rotated until it's grip tape up, pointing forward, and let go. And you land it, and you feel like a god.

Now factor in how gob-smackingly beautiful it is. The whole game looks really lovely (but for the character faces - the curse of the Xbox has struck the skating crew, and especially poor old Hawk who looks like an anaemic zombie). The world textures are as detailed and pretty as can be. Except no, it can be that bit prettier, in Nail The Dew Mode. Zoomed in, the world behind is Vaseline-bleary, sight focused on the explicit detail of your board, flakes of wood splintering from the edge, the sponsor logo on the wheels spinning, the grip tape tangible, all shining majestically in the light. It's skateboard porn.

What more can I say?

The Live aspect is less overwhelming, offering mini-games, rather than my mad desire for Test Drive Unlimited on skateboards. Perhaps that's for the next iteration - are you listening, Neversoft? More entertaining is the sharing of records across the world, where each in-game challenge is recorded, meaning you can attempt to beat the best grind distance of not only the designers' whim, but also some weird kid in Texas.

A fool would see this as more of the same Tony Hawk skating. It's the perfection of Tony Hawk skating. It's ridiculously big, completely lovely looking, and perfect arcade gaming. It's ideal for filling a quick half hour, which then mysteriously lasts until quarter to four in the morning when you've got loads of work to do the next day, but you had to wall-plant that table from the school buses because it would open up the Slums, which would then give you access to the incredible factory, see? Quarter to four in the morning - it's been so long since a game did that to me.