Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk recently sat down in an interview to talk about the latest title of the Tony Hawk games, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground - as well as a few comments about Electronic Art's SKATE. We're here to hit you with the cold hard facts faster and harder than botching an Indy 900.

The Hawk began the interview by talking about his involvement in the past games. He reminisces that, while his participation in the games have been fairly consistent, it was a much harder time when the first game was still in production - he had to give Neversoft and Activision a crash course of skateboarding culture besides helping with the actual game.

When asked of his thoughts about SKATE, Tony Hawk replied that it was about time for someone else to jump the bandwagon, and that he wasn't worried about EA's foray into the skating genre stealing Proving Ground's thunder. Posed with the fact that SKATE aims to be as realistic as possible, Tony replied that the game was as real as the player made of it - part of the appeal of video games is doing stuff you'd never be able to do in real life. He elaborated by saying that if they did make the Tony Hawk games as "realistic" as possible, they wouldn't even be able to make the 9th game in the series, much less a sequel to the original game.

Well, what about you, readers? SKATE or Tony Hawk's Proving Ground? Realism or over-the-top action? Either way, the comparison WILL be unavoidable - and we'll be here to update you as developments occur. In the meantime, you can check out the full interview at the read link we've provided below.