Neversoft has announced it's hard at work on its next Tony Hawk game that will come out later this year for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, and DS. With the title of Tony Hawk: Proving Ground, it sounds like a stab at Electronic Arts' Skate game, proving that there's only enough room for Tony Hawk skater games on store shelves. Neversoft is boasting that T.H.P.G. will give players more freedom for character defining and course customization than ever before, which sounds like the same half-kept promises we got for Tony Hawk Underground. The only truly new things Neversoft has mentioned are terrain altering and skating from single player to multiplayer seamlessly. The video capturing and level editor and all the other good stuff will be there too, but this doesn't seem like a Skate killer yet.

T.H.U.G. was the last Tony Hawk game I ever bought, and I think I stuck around for the series updates a lot longer than most people. For now I think I'll approach skating games the same way I approach football and other sports games -- buying just one or two at the birth of a new generation of consoles, and then waiting several years to see how far things have come.

Every week there's a new Line Rider recording video worth posting, but I've been waiting for a level related to video games to show up. Someone finally semi-recreated the first level of Super Mario Bros. in Line Rider one line at a time, and set the doodle dude off to reach the flag. He needed a few extra hills for jumps, and skipped all the secrets, but he made it there pretty quickly. And if this is your first time seeing a Line Rider level in action and you're disappointed, then check out this huge level that combines Tony Hawk grinding with Katamari Damacy music. You can make and play your own levels here.

What's the only video game studio on Earth where you could break an arm at work? Neversoft, the creators of the Tony Hawk skateboarding series. Not only will you get to see what the studio looks like in this video, but you'll also get plenty of glimpses at how they put together their most recent game - Tony Hawk's Project 8, where they completely rebuilt the game from scratch. You'll see several half pipes in their studio - one just for motion capping the animations in their new game. There's the typical dude with 3D wireframes on his monitor while he makes shapes with his hands during an interview, but they actually showed some interesting audio studio clips. I had no idea some of the grinding and manual sound effects came from some guy rubbing a broomstick handle over a piece of plywood. Looks like a pretty cool studio, I can't imagine 3D modeling a level while Tony Hawk is doing 1080's ten feet away from me. They must have a lot of fun.

Music is just as essential as grinding is in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater game series, and Tony Hawk's Project 8 for the PS3 doesn't look like it will disappoint at all. The Tony Hawk Downhill Jam game for the Wii looks fun, but Project 8 looks good enough so far that I won't feel bad at all for buying the next clone in the series. Some of the musicians and bands on the game's soundtrack include Nine Inch Nails, The Ramones, Slayer, Bad Religion, Gnarls Barkley, and specifically one of my favorites: "Summer Madness" by Kool and the Gang. You can check out the full song list here.