It’s been about eight years since “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” was introduced. Since then, the series has ruled the world of virtual skateboarding with a new game almost every year.

The newest, “Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground,” adds some new features but overall feels like more of the same — which isn’t necessarily bad but isn’t that great, either.

This year has a twist, however — Electronic Arts has stepped up to bat and produced “Tony Hawk’s” first real competition in a long time, the simply named “Skate.”

How you like to play likely will determine if you’d prefer “Proving Ground” or “Skate.” They’re both skateboarding games, but they’re radically different.

Those familiar with the “Tony Hawk” series will be able to jump right into “Proving Ground.” There are a few new moves, and the story format has changed, but overall it continues the series’ pattern of incremental change.

“Proving Ground” takes place in D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia. Once you unlock areas, you can skate seamlessly from one city to the next. The world has a gritty, big-city feel to it, and it works.

I like the way the storyline plays out. You’re given three skating “classes” to play: career, as you try to become a professional skater; hardcore, in which you “skate just to skate” and do things like body check thugs; and rigger, which has you placing ramps, rails and other items to create your own lines.

You can either run through all the objectives in one class, or pop back and forth between all of them. Each time you complete a task, a meter fills up, and when the meter is full, you earn something useful, such as gear and stat boosts.

Objectives are given by actual pro skaters, and each bit of the storyline opens with real-life video of that skater doing his thing. The downside is most of the skaters are terrible actors and deliver their lines without any emotion or inflection. Also, while the characters hold pretty accurate to their real-world counterparts, their mouths often look weird and out-of-sync.

New to the series is the aggro kick, a move that allows you to push faster by hitting a button at the right time. Also new are extensions of the slow-motion Nail-the-Trick. Nail-the-Grab lets you do grab tricks, and Nail-the-Manual is supposed to let you do manuals, but is harder than it sounds.

As always, there’s online play, with all the usual game modes. But, as with first-person shooters, many who dwell online are there a lot and likely will kick your you-know-what.

“Proving Ground” isn’t bad, and I like how you have the option to tackle whatever type of objective you feel like. But it seems the series has lost some of its steam, and I can’t help but think “more of the same,” even with all the changes.

If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll likely play it and enjoy it, but it’s not going to be the game that brings the series back to its high point (which I consider to be “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3”).

Meanwhile, if you’re tired of the same old thing, there’s “Skate” to consider. EA’s effort throws out all the familiar control schemes and turns to the thumbsticks in an attempt to reinvent the genre.

It’s fun and different — and really hard to get used to, especially if you’ve recently played a “Tony Hawk” game. Where “Tony Hawk” is arcade-style skateboarding, “Skate” takes a more realistic, physics-driven approach.

In “Skate,” most of the trick buttons are mapped to the right thumbstick, even the jump. Flicking down and straight back up on the thumbstick makes the player jump, while flicking down and swerving to the right or left as you come back up makes the player do a flip trick. Flicking down and coming back up in a half-circle performs another trick. Using the triggers makes the skater do grabs.

It sounds complicated, but it’s intuitive; it just takes some practice.

For the most part, I like the control scheme. What I don’t like is that to make the skater push, you have to hit the A or X button.

This wouldn’t be a problem except I have trouble moving from the A button to the thumbstick quickly and accurately when I’m trying to push, then jump onto something. A lot of my frustrations came from this, and I think simply moving the push button elsewhere (maybe a shoulder button) would have helped immensely.

Another issue is the game sometimes interprets your thumb flicks incorrectly, reading what you wanted to be a flip trick as something else with a similar thumb movement. That can be frustrating.

“Skate” is an open world, meaning you can run around until you find people who will issue challenges. Your goal, as usual, is to become famous, and winning challenges eventually will get you there.

Visually, “Skate” is more impressive than “Proving Ground.” The world looks smoother, and the skaters’ movements are fluid and lifelike.

“Skate” also offers decent online play. Both “Skate” and “Proving Ground” let you post in-game videos you’ve recorded, which is pretty cool.

While “Skate” isn’t perfect, it’s a nice start for a new series, and I could see it potentially unseating “Tony Hawk” in the future.

But which one players like better really depends on how much they want to work for it.

“Skate” I think is the better game, but it requires lots of dedication and patience to be able to learn and use the controls well.

“Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground” doesn’t change up things much, but it’s built on a solid base, and some people will prefer its easier, arcade-like controls.