An Honest Review: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD

I can't write this coming from a passive angle. The Pro Skater series of games are among my favorites and Pro Skater 2 is not only my all-time favorite but its the one I cut my teeth on when it came to calling myself a gamer. So you can understand my utter disappointment when I say that Pro Skater HD is quite possibly the worst of the worst of the Tony Hawk games. Worse than even Ride and Shred. At least those two attempted something new. Pro Skater HD has us believing that it came to fruition to fix all the wrongs of the past few games. A revisiting of what was once greatness. An acceptance to the fans that the games can still hold their own.
Instead it cements the hopeless resurrection of the franchise.
At this point, Robomodo just needs to exit the gaming business. Their constant failures of games means meager profits for parent company Activision and they've wasted so much money on doing the wrong things. I find it funny how Tony Hawk himself was kind of "meh" about the whole idea of returning to the roots. Yes, it is what fans wanted, but we never wanted this. The amount of pros that signed up to return can be counted on one hand. The rest are amateurs that somehow got popular enough to make it in. I guess the others knew this game was going to suck so they all stepped away from it.

While I love the Unreal Engine 3, its versatility is completely wasted here. When I first heard the announcement I figured it would be a few levels from the first two Pro Skaters with just  HD re-skins. Instead the entire game is built from the ground up using UE3. This translates to a wonky, glitched, and pathetic remake. This engine is best suited for real-life physics and shooter games, not the arcade action of the Pro Skater variety. Had the original Pro Skater 2 engine just been used it would have been understandable and would have made for a better game overall.

I'll get the graphics portion out of the way and say that while its awesome to see the old levels get a facelift they're still the same. No new areas, no hidden secrets, same old, same old. If you've played the first two then expect de ja vu. Yes, there are a few small variations added to some of the levels but adding a kicker or planter doesn't make it more exciting.

Outright frustrating, the controls have suffered the most, making it nearly unplayable at times. Automatically snapping to rails when grinding or not grinding at all, rag doll bails that can sometimes force the character through the ground, unachievable heights due to a change in controls, and the glitches... OH SWEET TAP-DANCING JESUS. THE GLITCHES. The game is playable for the most part until you find your skaters foot stuck in a rail somehow after what should have been a normal grind. Then you start to realize that the game is seriously screwed up on an engine implementation level.

One major thing missing is the beloved Create-A-Skater from Pro Skater 2. Instead, for the XBLA version, we get our Avatars to skate around with. Create-A-Park? Just a memory. Couch co-op? Nope, its online only.

The soundtrack is pieced together with some old favorites from the past and some really horrible indie stuff from today. Its a sad mixture that lets you know that the hardcore, punk, do-it-yourself, push-the-envelope skaters of the olden days have disappeared and whats left are teenagers with flat-brim hats, Monster energy drinks, and piercings thinking they're evolving a sport that has been stagnant since Hawk landed the 900. (Yes, I know, a kid has landed a 1080, but I don't see him winning competitions left and right.) Let's face it, the skateboarding craze of over 10 years ago has cooled and this game does nothing to relive those memories.

I've played through Pro Skater on PS1, N-Gage, N64, GBC, and Dreamcast,. I've played through Pro Skater 2 on PS1, DC, GBC, GBA, PC, N64, and Xbox (when I say my all-time favorite, I mean it). I've gone through the levels so many times I know them by heart. Here, playing through Pro Skater HD is just a chore. Its boring. Slow. Uninteresting. Non-challenging in the sense that the only thing holding the player back are the bad physics.

I can't go on.
I'm usually good with words but now they just fail me. 
This game is horrible. That's all there is to it.
You're better off spending $15 buying the first two Pro Skater games on any available console than wasting your money on this. At least you'll get more content, entertainment, and value from something from the past.

Keep Playing.

A Second Look @ Grind Session (PS1)

(Images taken from Moby Games and IGN)

 

When a game refuses to follow the button presses of the player and instead decides what's best for it, it makes for a really terrible game. Playing a game should be fun, not tedious. Its hard NOT to compare this game to the Pro Skater series but it is easy to pick it apart piece by piece and quickly discover what went wrong. I remember being impressed by the demo for this game on a Playstation Underground demo disc years ago. Today, after just one hour of play time, I realize that this game has shattered my good thoughts of it. The game can't even be edgy when it comes to skateboarding, a sport known for having some hardcore people. Amidst the skating craze of the early 00's it should have been easy to tap into the culture.

Grind Session follows its own rules and ends up alienating the player multiple times through inaccurate or incomplete button presses, terrible physics and gravity, broken skating lines, mediocre tricks and skaters, and a meager amount of time to do things in. Remember breaking the objects in the first Pro Skater? Well that happens in pretty much every level here. There's little to no imagination to the entire game.
By advancing through, your chosen professional or created skater earns respect. Although how the words "Grind Session" and "respect" can be said in the same sentence is beyond me. The game physics, possibly 50% of the time, won't allow you to complete a line because you'll fall off a rail or not jump high enough.

Tricks are unlocked by earning enough respect to complete a level. They range from simple combinations to double d-pad presses for the more complicated ones. Something similar to the special tricks in the Pro Skater series. When enough tricks are successfully landed, your skater goes into “Possession” mode, which allows them to spin faster. Grind Session's spinning is done only by left and right on the d-pad, which means you need to press carefully if you're wanting to spin a trick after pressing up or down on the d-pad. Its just convoluted.
You won't be able to count how many times a trick WILL NOT go through. Apparently the game has a hard time processing what should be two flips or grabs in a row. As for the grinding, the best way to describe it would be "broken." Holding down the grind button makes you stay on the rail while releasing it to set up for the next trick causes your skater to jump off. A few times you'll hit a line perfectly, only to come off and bail while landing even with your wheels pointed forward. Why? I don't know.

There's one thing the game almost does right: creating a female skater, something not seen in Pro Skater 2 until 2x. Unfortunately, the create-a-skater options are limited to two variations of a male and female model. Each one looking like someone you'd find pushing mongo around a California boardwalk. One thing that begs to be mentioned is that there are more hidden/unlockable skaters than there are professionals. Personally, aside from Daewon Song, I've never heard of any of the other pros, or have heard anything about them since this game.

The graphics are terrible in the fact that it could have been done better. We've SEEN it done better in the first Pro Skater, and this game came out after Pro Skater 2!
Skating around should be fun, right? Nope, not here. Most of the levels are huddled together and there's very little room to do extravagant things in, much less room to get a good line going. The level designs are terrible and bland. Nothing interesting to see.
More than a few times will the camera screw with you whether on a jump or in general since there's no free-looking. You have to stop the skater either with the circle button (what's wrong with pressing down?) or L2. Holding down L2 to look around in 'Skater's Eye' mode wastes precious time.

The sound is bland: a grunt from the skater, a metallic sound while grinding, a cash registering 'dinging,' it does little to draw you in. There are very few environmental sounds and the cardboard cutout crowd cheering during competitions gives you a feeling of "no one really cares."
The music is varied, at least, and is ALMOST the saving grace for the whole game. Artists like Jurassic 5, Black Flag, and a few others give it a nice diversity, but it repeats so often you get sick of it in the first hour.

An

Its a game that's meant to be taken or leaven as is. I, for one, would rather leave it, in a trash pile. Oddly enough the developer, Shaba Games, went on to develop Pro Skater 3 for the PS1 which wasn't a bad game at all. Grind Session was up against a giant of a game in the arcade skating genre, and when measured beside it its simple manual trick just couldn't compare to the Hawk's 900.

A Second Look @ Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (GBA)

(All images are taken from Gamespot)

If you've played any of the console versions of Pro Skater 2, you should have high expectations already. The sequel takes everything fans love about the previous game and cranks it up to 11. The same holds true for the GameBoy Advance version. I want to avoid using the word "port" since this is far from it. It's Pro Skater 2, to be sure, just mini. Same levels, same pros, same tricks. However that might not be enough to afford attention from someone who prefers the console versions.

As soon as the main menu wheel shows, you'll understand how much attention went into this game to be just like the bigger versions. The game contains a Career Mode, Free Skate, and Single Session. Upon first seeing the character selection, one might be disappointed by the pixelized pros. But don't be fooled, they stand up just as well as one should expect.

It will take some time to get used to the default control scheme, but if it becomes too difficult it can be freely changed in the menus; something that feels more natural to the player would be the best route to take. Things such as entering the nollie stance is done by pressing the same button used for kick tricks. The shoulder buttons, as well as the d-pad, rotate the skater left or right in the air. These can't be changed but there is no button interference when playing.

When you stick to it all the way through, you'll find the usual bonus characters, Officer Dick and Spiderman, on the character selection screen. One new addition is Mindy, not the same one from American Wasteland, added to replace Private Carrera.

The 45-degree angle that the game is presented in takes some getting used, eventually it becomes something the player just ignores and accepts. It works, and that's fine.

The biggest, and possibly only, gripe one might have with this game is the lack of character creation. It's understandable that it would have to be cut from the GBA, but we could all do without a few cheats, Mindy, and one less song. A simple character editor would be ideal. Change skin color, hair color, clothes color, and add a board from one of the pros and that would satisfy. I suppose having that option would be too much to put on a GBA cart though.

Pay close attention when performing a trick, you'll see the animations have practically been copied frame by frame from the console versions. The animations, such as Tony Hawk's 900 or Rodney Mullen's Casper to 360 flip, are excellent to look it. They're never just "rotating to 900 degrees" or "a manual that ends with a flip." Each trick is detailed to look exactly like the bigger versions.

Large areas such as the School in Florida and New York City have been shuffled around a bit to make it compatible. Others such as Marseille, France and the hangar in Mullet Falls are the same. As a slight bonus the Warehouse from Pro Skater 1 has been added, with only a few minor changes to level layout. Each change isn't enough to get angry over, it just takes some getting used to.

The sound is the best I've heard in a GBA game so far. From the main menu wheel to a skater hitting the pavement, it's all the same from the console versions. The only thing different from the consoles is the music: the midi-file music is similar, yet at the same time it feels as though it's best suited for this game alone. You still have that SoCal rock feel to it as well as a few hiphop basslines.

The replay value takes this game to about 10 hours, with breaks. Once you get used to getting 100% with one skater it becomes easy to get the rest of the careers complete. Achieving 100% game total, however, will take effort. Mindy can't be unlocked unless you find all gaps (up to Skatestreet anyway). Even after completing the game its still fun to take on-the-go and play every now and then, its something that sticks with you.

If one started with Pro Skater 2 on the GBA and never touched the console versions, there would be no need to fret. This IS Pro Skater 2, just smaller. It's the cherry on top for any fan of the series. Its an excellent game that's worthy of any addition to one's collection.

Keep Playing.