TONY HAWK'S PROVING GROUND
CLASSIC MODE WALKTHROUGH

I spent only a couple hours writing this walkthrough, so there's
obviously going to be only a minimal amount of detail.  However,
since there are no other guides around for Classic Mode, this should
do someone some good.  For each level I've given instructions for
each of the non-scoring goals, and I've also said where my favorite
skating locations are.  My personal scoring suggestions are really
only for those people who haven't mastered the transition to manual,
and who can't easily put together one minute plus combos for millions
upon millions of points.  The only game I've played prior to this one
is Tony Hawk Pro Skater for the N64, so I'm more inclined towards
earning points the old fashioned way.

I have my work and kids to worry about, and therefore don't have
time to deal with a lot of game-related correspondence.  I really only
want to hear from people who either have one or more corrections
for the non-scoring related goals, or who have level-specific scoring
techniques they'd like me to include in this walkthrough.  I'll of
course give anyone credit who contributes in either way.  Please
don't contact me regarding anything else, unless you're really really
certain I'll want to hear about it.  Any sort of email abuse will result
in my removing this walkthrough from any website on which it appears.

I highly recommend trying to find all the gaps in the game.  Some
people think the only point of doing this is to be to be able to get to
100% completion.  However, in seeking out the gaps, you'll get to
areas of the map you're not likely to find by just skating around, and
places where you may be better able to score high point totals.

I don't know anything about Story Mode, so don't bother asking
about it.

The text of this walkthrough was written by Desiree Ramos unless
otherwise stated.  My email address is boobiebiz@yahoo.com.  I'd prefer
that this walkthrough not be posted outside of Gamefaqs, but I'll permit
it as long as the entire body of the file is included and that it's not
featured on a scam/hacking site.


01. SKATEPARK

-Collect S-K-A-T-E
Go more or less straight ahead until you reach the outside portion of
the level.  Follow the partially buried pipes to collect the letters.

-Collect C-O-M-B-O
Grind the rail right in front of the level's starting point, which even
with your low rail stat shouldn't be a big deal as long as you throw in
some transitions.

-Nosegrind the Dozer Blades
These are (kind of) hidden as part of the long quarterpipe lining the
southern border of the outside portion.  Grind them as indicated.

-Spine Transfer the Pools
In the inside portion of the level, there's a cement area that's not
actually a pool but sort of a three-quarters pool (with steps lining the
one side).  Go to the wooden quarterpipes just to the east of this, and
spine transfer into the "pool".  You must use the RIGHT button to
receive credit.

Find the Secret Tape
-In the outside portion of the level, you'll see a curved quarterpipe on
the northwest border.  Gather some speed with aggro kicks, leap up
the north side and grind the wall.  Immediately transfer into the pool
on the other side, and collect the tape along its border.  You can also
get into the pool via the inside portion of the level.  A high speed
level may also be helpful, as it may allow you to simply spine
transfer over either wall.

My Favorite Location
-Definitely the rails running through the indoor portion of the level.
You can transfer between the rails, add flips and whatnot to bump up
your multiplier, and use your touch special.  There's also plenty of
opportunity to dismount, keep your combination active with a
manual, and grind back to the starting point.  The catwalk is another
place to get off some long grinds, but I don't like it as much because
there's no place to transfer and it's more difficult to loop back
around.


02. PHILLY

Collect S-K-A-T-E
-Skate along the street you start off on.  Grind and leap as necessary.

Collect C-O-M-B-O
-I like to collect these letters in the order O-B-M-O-C, so that's how
the instructions will be written though of course you can collect them
in any order you'd like.  Head down the street you start off on and
approach the southwest corner.  Gather some speed with aggro kicks
and grind the quarterpipe at the turn to collect the "O".  Transition to
manual as the quarterpipe ends, and skate alongside the ramp to get
the "B".  Either leap up next wooden ramp and gain enough distance
to immediately grind the quarterpipe immediately ahead of you, or
manual around it.  I suggest leaping, because you'll need to keep
your speed up to be able to get the last letter, and the longer you
manual the slower you'll move.  Grind said quarterpipe, leap over the
gap, and continue the grind on the other side to collect the last letter.

360 Indy the Car Kicker
-The car kicker is found on the left side of the street you start out on.
The rest of what you need to do is indicated on the "goals completed" list.

Grind the Signs
-There are four grind signs, all within plain view of the street you
start out on.  Grind them all to complete the goal.

Find the Secret Tape
-Head down the street you start out on, make two turns, and then turn
sharply to your left to enter into the construction area.  Go to the
west side of the area, past the blue metal platform.  Turn around,
gather a little speed, and jump off of the plank ramp onto the crane.
Grind its extension to grab the secret tape.

My Favorite Location
-This would be the train tracks running above the level.  I like them
for the same reason as I like the rails in the Skatepark level, but here
there are more rails to transfer between and they're straighter.  My
second favorite location would be the roof pool at the north of the
map, but while it's fun to skate, I can score five times the number of
points on a combo on the train tracks.


03. HARBOR

Collect S-K-A-T-E
-Head roughly northeast from the starting point until you come to a
building with a metal stairway leading up the right side.  Grind the
rail to collect "S", and then follow the walkway around the building
and down the other side.  Grab the letter "K" which is positioned
beside the fence surround a parking area.  Continue down the road,
going to the left side when you reach the fork, and get the letter "A"
by grinding the rail to your right.  Veer left, go up the walkway, and
grab the letter "T".  Now go to the nearby complex of pools, and
enter the eastern-most one to collect the "E".

Collect C-O-M-B-O
-I suggest that you build up your rail skill before attempting this one
unless you want to become really frustrated.  Head behind you (from
the starting point) and to the left to come to an area surrounded by a
brick quarterpipe.  Gather some speed, leap up the quarterpipe, and
grind the ledge surrounding the building.  You'll want to be headed
west.  Throw in a couple jumps as you're grinding the ledge to gather
some more speed, and leap over the gap you come to.  Grind the new
ledge around its building, until you come to the street surrounding
the pool complex.  There's a point in this area where you're
guaranteed to fall off if you continue your grind.  Leap over it,
continue your grind upon landing, and collect the remaining letters
along your path.

Grind Across the Stumps
-Go to your left as you start out, and you'll come to the edge of the
water.  You'll see a series of stumps in mid-water with a rope
connecting them.  Go towards either end of this series of stumps and
mount the rope.  I personally recommend that you start out on the
parking lot side, and that you grind the fence before transferring to
the rope.  There's a ramp you can use to mount the other end of the
rope, but it's more difficult to hit.  Grind the entire length of rope,
although you may have to do it a couple times before you receive
credit.

Backflip Between the Pools
-Go to the aforementioned complex of pools, and backflip between
any two of the series of three pools at the west side of the complex.
You need to spine transfer with the RIGHT button to receive credit.

Find the Secret Tape
-Go onto the walkway where you found the letter "T".  Gather some
speed, and grind the low-lying ledge immediately to the left of where
you found the letter.  Leap over the gap to the next low lying ledge,
and then leap again almost immediately to grind the edge of a pool to
your left side.  Go inside it, and you'll find the secret tape suspended
above a rail along the northern side of the pool.

My Favorite Location
-I met my scoring goals on this level grinding the area between the
"T" in S-K-A-T-E and the pool where the secret tape is located.  The
pool is also a good location for vertical skating and sustaining long
grinds and combos around its circumference.  I can also put together
some good combos along the water.


04. MUSEUMS

Collect S-K-A-T-E
-Head along the street you start out on, past the shuttle suspended in
mid-air, until you come to the formal museum entrance.  Grind one
of the rails leading up the steps to collect the "S".  Wind along the
path into the museum, and grind the right side (as you're approaching
it) of the torpedo display to get the "A".  As you dismount the
display, continue heading in the direction it takes you.  Mount the
blimp using one of the rails to collect the "T", and then provided you
have some speed, you can leap to the "E".  Double back, go to the
other side of the torpedo display, and leap off the quaterpipe there to
either grind or spine transfer and collect the "K".  You can also get
the "K" as you're entering the museum by jumping off the first
quarterpipe you come to, but I remember that when I first completed
this level, it seemed awkward to collect the letters in their implied
order.

Collect C-O-M-B-O
-Enter the museum through the second of the two breaks in the
quarterpipe to your right (from the starting point).  Throw in an
aggro kick, and then grind the display area to your left.  You'll need
to have a certain amount of speed accumulated at this point, or else
you won't be able to cross the gap to the next part of the grind.
Catch the rotor of the helicopter, grind it and then leap to the wing of
the airplane (in which you'll coincidentally find the "Hella Plain"
gap).  Grind the wing and leap again to catch a ledge suspended over
the walkway you'll come to.  Grind along this and then the wire
suspended between the wall and rocket to collect the final two
letters.

Bluntside the Roof
-Head up the large stairway just ahead of the starting point.  Gather
some speed, and leap up the quarterpipe to catch a grind on the ledge
above the pillars.  Hit the controls as indicated on the "goals
completed" screen.  You may have more success mounting this area
by grinding in from the surrounding ledges and banners, so
experiment with it.

Natas Spin All Four Poles
-This is a pretty straightforward goal.  Grind the top of each of the
four poles as you head along the street.  They're all in plain view.

Find the Secret Tape
-Head along the street until you come to the suspended shuttle, and
then enter the museum via the formal entrance (as you did when you
were collecting S-K-A-T-E).  As you first enter into the open area of
the museum, turn right, go past the stairway, and onto a ramp leading
outdoors.  Ollie just as you're about to fall off the ramp into the street
and you'll find yourself on one of the shuttle wings.  Nudge the
control pad forward to get onto the other wing (if you press it for too
long you'll fly off the shuttle).  Use this wing and the fuselage as a
halfpipe and collect the secret tape.  Do so quickly however, as you'll
probably fall off the shuttle within a few attempts.

My Favorite Location
-The inside of the museum has plenty of things to grind and plenty of
space in between them to keep a combo going.  Another way I've
had success scoring in this level is by starting grind combos in the
pocket beside the stairs, just to the left of the starting point, and
continuing them all the way down to where the suspended shuttle is
located.


05. FDR

Collect S-K-A-T-E
-"S" is in the northeast portion of the main area.  "K" is in sight of it,
towards the west, accessible by jumping off the side of the bowl
situated next to it.  "A" is above a passageway lining the western
edge of the map.  Entering from the north, grind along a wire leading
up from the short ledge on your left.  This will segway into the wire
crossing over the passageway from which the letter can be grabbed.
Continue preceding down this passageway, enter the warehouse
which is straight ahead of you, and collect the "T" which is to your
left.  Head up with wooden halfpipe to either side of you and veer to
either the right or left to wind up on the roof of the warehouse.  Leap
off of the quarterpipe at the southern end of the roof to collect the
"E".

Collect C-O-M-B-O
-I found this to be the most difficult C-O-M-B-O in the game to
collect.  Veer to your left as you start the level to head towards the
"C".  Gather speed with a couple of aggro kicks.  Leap onto and
grind the brick-lined bowl edge with the "C" hovering above it, and
then hold onto the grind until you've reached the "O".  Leap off and
switch to manual before hitting the ground.  Manual over to where
the "M" is located.  I highly advise that you grind the rail it's
hovering above.  Although you could manual all the way from the
first "O" to the second "O", it's unlikely that you'll have enough
velocity to do so.  After you've (presumably) ground the rail to
collect the "M", again switch to manual and head in the direction the
rail has sent you in.  You'll see the "B" hovering above a cement
structure coming up from the dirt, and while you may be able to simply
manual towards it, odds are that you'll touch the side of the cement
structure in the wrong way and cancel out your manual.  Leap over the
cement structure, grab the "B", and return to manual.  Skate the
through the wooden halfpipe and collect the "O".

Melon Between the Pipes
-This goal is pretty self-explanatory.  Go to the back-to-back
halfpipes directly behind you as you start the level (one's wooden
and one's metal).  Spine transfer between them as you hit the
controls indicated on the "goals completed" screen.  You won't
receive credit without doing an official spine transfer by pressing
the RIGHT button.

Grind All Four Box Gaps
-This is another straightforward goal.  There are four box gaps as
shown in the video clip starting the level, and they're distributed
around the map.  Box Grind 4 is located to the right of you on the
outside of the bowl, and looks a little different than the one depicted
in the video shown when starting the level (it doesn't have the metal
ramps to either side).  The other difficult one to find is Box Grind 2,
which curves and looks nothing like the other three.  It's in the
northeast corner of the area and leads into the side of a cement bowl
(its end is positioned beside the "S" in S-K-A-T-E).  The other two
look like the one shown in the starting video, are out in the open and
should be easy to find.

Find the Secret Tape
-There's rectangular section of the map, roughly in the middle of the
level, which is outlined in maroon.  Head to the southern end of this
rectangular bowl, leap up the side to grind the surrounding rail, and
collect the (not so) secret tape.

My Favorite Location
-The only way I really like to skate for points in this level is by
starting at the southwest corner beside the entrance of the warehouse,
and continuing grind combos down eastern border of the map.  A lot
of the time I can keep a combo alive by then going down into the
bowls on a manual, coming back up, and grinding their edges.
Another place I like to skate in this level are in the back-to-back
halfpipes, for the vertical skating and the fun of transferring between
them, but I wouldn't expect to run up high point totals there.


06. LANSDOWNE

Collect S-K-A-T-E
-The letters are arranged in just about a straight line in the southern
portion of the map.  The first letter can be grabbed by jumping up the
side of the river and grinding the fence.  Keep your balance, head
west and you'll automatically get the other ones.

Collect C-O-M-B-O
-Locate the "C".  Grind the ledge leading up to the letter, jump off
after getting it and switch to a manual before hitting the ground.
Continue in the direction you're headed, collect the "O", and then
grind the ledge you arrive at to get the "M".  Either jump to the
ground, switching to manual to continue your combo; or if you have
enough velocity, jump directly into a grind of the next ledge.  One
way or the other, go on to collect the "B" and "O".

Sacktap Over the River
-From the "S" in S-K-A-T-E, head east down the riverbed.  Go along
the bend until you wind up in a loop of river directly north of where
the letters were/are.  Spine transfer from the southern end of this
loop to the northern end, while hitting the controls indicated on the
"goals completed" screen.

Bluntside the Woods
-Go to the cement wall shown in the video leading into this level.
Bluntside it.

Find the Secret Tape
-Grind the fence on which you collected S-K-A-T-E.  Go in the same
direction as before, and you'll find the secret tape.  The only catch
is that you can't grind continuously from where you picked up the
letters, so you'll have to mount the fence a little further down.

My Favorite Location
-I skate for points in one of two locations in Lansdowne.  The first
would be along the ledges bordering most of the level, and the better
location would be the largely detached area in the southeast corner.


07. MONUMENTS

Collect S-K-A-T-E
-If you explore the structure containing the pillars towards the start
of this level, you'll find four of the five letters.  "S" hovers above a
wire extending from the south side of the structure, "A" and "E"
hover above wires extending from the north side, and you'll find the
"K" right in the middle of the arc on your map.  To find the "T",
return to the level's starting point, go to the building at the east side
of the street, use the quarterpipe butted up against it to mount a ledge
about midway up the wall, and grind along it.

Collect C-O-M-B-O
-From the level's starting point, grind the island sitting right in front
of you to grab the "C", and then jump to the next island for the "O".
Switch to a manual before you hit the ground, and continue heading
in that direction until you come the "M" floating above the rail.
Grind the rail, collect the "M", and then transfer to the ledge at the
right side of the stairway for the "B".  It's more or less a continuous
grind from here to the second "O".  One of the tricks here is that you
have to have enough velocity after getting the "M" to make the
transfer to the "B".  Another one is finding a safe place to dismount
after the second "O".

5-0 the Extension
-The "extension" is in the southeast portion of the map.  It looks like
a funky "H".  Grind it, hitting the controls as indicated on the "goals
completed" screen.

Nosegrind Behind the Pillars
-To the right of you when you start the level is a pool.  Behind those
pools on a ledge are pillars.  Behind those pillars is a rail.  Nosegrind
(the rail) behind the pillars to complete this goal.  You can use the
quarterpipe to either side of the pillars to get up there, along with a
spine transfer to get some distance out of your jump.

Find the Secret Tape
-Go behind the "extension" and look over the top of it.  Now, turn
around.  Behind it you'll see a gray brick wall with two blue hills
jutting out from it.  Gather some velocity and grind this wall headed
west.  From either one of these hills, you should be able to easily leap
up to grind a rail leading to the roof of a building.  Once you've gotten
onto the roof, use one of the quarterpipes on the west side to spine
transfer into a small bowl, and collect the secret tape by getting some
air off the side.  You can also get to the rail leading to the roof by
getting some decent air off of the quarterpipe in front of the gray and
blue wall, or to the roof directly by getting air off of the quarterpipe
butted against the building it's attached to.

My Favorite Location
-The easiest place I've found to rack up high combo point totals in
the game is in the small rectangular pool, below the ledge where you
find the "T" in S-K-A-T-E.  There's only one angle to grind inside,
but given the fact that there are sloping walls surrounding you, you
can add a wild number of tricks and flips and not stray from the
course.  There's also a good chance of keeping your combo alive,
either off of a quarterpipe or in the flat area in the middle of the
pool.  Since this level has the highest scoring requirements for goals
completion (2 million points for the "sick score" and 1 million for the
"sick combo score") I'll tell you exactly what I did to meet them.  In
the small rectangular pool, I ground the angle inside and added tricks
and flips to get my multiplier up to somewhere between x15 or x20.  I
then switched to the touch special "downhill luge" and ran my base score
up to between 66k to 50k, depending upon my multiplier, to score a
million point combo.  I did this again to reach the 2 million overall
score.  The only trick is that you'll want to run your multiplier up
before doing the touch special, and not the other way around.  A touch
grind special will throw your rail balance badly out of whack, so that
if you do it first, you'll find it difficult to run your multiplier up
high enough on a grind to meet the scoring goals.


08. ADDITIONAL LEVEL-SPECIFIC SCORING TECHNIQUES

None submitted as of yet.


09. OTHER CREDITS

No one to credit as of yet.