With the ninth Tony Hawk title in the series being released this fall, the question must be asked, “When will it end?” Enjoying some of the greatest success seen in recent video game series, Activision has taken a queue from the biggest offender in the ‘releasing too many games in too short of time club’ known as EA, and has consistently been obsessive compulsively releasing titles faster than I get cheap food from the McDonald’s drive in.

To me the series has been a down hill spiral since the release of Tony Hawk 3, which included the final step in allowing you to combo anywhere; the revert. From that point innovation went out the window and the struggle for more titles in less time ensued. How about we take a break from the series; releasing good, but not great (and more importantly innovative) titles, take a step back, and really change something about the game, rather than tack on additional gimmicks? Perhaps one could argue that the gameplay is solid; that nothing about the core game needs to, or even should be changed. If that is the case, then stop making this series. If all you plan on doing is creating additional areas, adding a handful of tricks, and slapping a new title on the game, then perhaps downloadable content is your bag of chips, as this area of distribution is both cost effective, and popular. I am personally taking a break from the series. I loved Tony once. We used to play on the weekends, and tell stories to one another until late into the night, but not anymore. He is a one trick puppy and has outstayed and overplayed while I overpaid. Please check out trailers for both the new Tony Hawk’s Proving Grounds as well as EA’s (shudder that I am even saying that this looks to be a good direction for skating games) skate. Finally a skate boarding game with some innovation.