Tony Hawk's Proving Ground

The Wii version of Proving Ground wasn't made by Neversoft but by Page 44 Studios, and the difference is obvious at first glance and while playing. The open world that lets players freely drive between missions in the PS3 and Xbox 360 editions is here replaced by a level-select menu – the player switches between locations through the pause screen rather than by driving through the streets. Also gone are the Nail The Manual sections, free-roam skateparks, full cutscenes (replaced by pre-rendered sequences), and some of the side branches of the individual storylines, so content-wise it's clearly a reduced version compared to the current-gen edition.

Instead, though, the Wii version offers something the other editions don't – motion controls tailored specifically to the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. Transitions between obstacles (spine transfers), chaining tricks, and the special Nail The Trick move are controlled by gestures instead of buttons, so despite the reduced content the game plays noticeably differently from the PS3, Xbox 360, or PS2 versions, with which it shares the same studio and similar level layouts. It's thus a distinctive adaptation of the Proving Ground concept to gameplay, not just a technically weaker rewrite of the same code from the previous generation.

The same studio, Page 44, also delivered the PlayStation 2 version, with which the Wii edition shares its reduced content and level-select menu – the only thing that sets the Wii version apart from it is precisely the gesture control tied to the motion controller. Proving Ground on Wii thus offers an experience that can't be found on either the more powerful consoles of that generation or on the technically closer PlayStation 2, standing at the crossroads of both approaches to Tony Hawk games at the time. Reviewers back then judged the game mainly on how well the tilt-and-gesture controls suited this limited, level-select style of structure.

Why play it: This version makes sense for players who want to experience Proving Ground through gestures – tilting and swinging the remote and nunchuk instead of stick-based tricks – and are willing to trade that for the open world and extra content offered by the Neversoft-developed PS3 and Xbox 360 editions.