Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 (PC) Review

“Doesn’t that make it three in a row?” These might be the words uttered by fans of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. It seems that Activision cannot lose with this franchise. I mean there’s not much in the way of competition in the skateboarding genre, but they also make a damn fine game that blows away any of the competition that they do have. The THPS series has almost become an “art” amongst gamers, having some of the most addictive gameplay ever known in a videogame, as well as creating the extreme genre that has become so popular. <br /> <br /> THPS 3 for the PC is the latest installment to the series and arrives a good 6 or 7 months after the initial PS2 release. As with the PS2 version the game features network play, which is significantly easier to set-up then that version and features a lot more game modes, however the game features very few extra goodies for those who already own it. <br /> <br /> I was thinking about it, and I’m not sure if I even have to talk on this. Unless you’ve been living in the mountains since Sep. ’99, then you should know about the revolutionary gameplay that exists in the Tony Hawk series of games. It’s just so gripping and addictive. When your not playing you hear “You know you want to play me” in your head, and when you find yourself in a game, it’s hard to get out. A lot of times I will get into a game of Tony Hawk (with all kinds of work to do) and say “I’ll just play for a minute”, three hours later, I find out that I made a big mistake, as Tony Hawk has just taken up most of my afternoon. <br /> <br /> One aspect that gives THPS 3 (or the series in general) a gameplay advantage is how it controls. You all know the deal; you got your Ollie, Grind, Grab, Kick, and Revert button right. You start off at a simple pace and hit something up. The usual method is to combine a direction on your D-pad with one of the selected trick buttons, thus making your skater pull of awesome tricks. You can perform a simple kickflip, a more complicated 900 and everything in between. Now if you’re a veteran to the series, you might say that all those weak tricks are small potatoes. There is some truth to that, but then again, when you become a pro at the game, you will realize that it is those little tricks that make up huge scores. <br /> <br /> Now my main gripe with the control system in the PC version of THPS 3 is that there is no Playstation controller for it. Lets face it, the whole PC and Mouse works great with role-playing games and first person shooters, but not with sports games <br /> <br /> Having played every version of THPS 3, I have to say that I was quite disappointed in the graphics for the PC version. The characters look better, as well as a lot of the actual skating, but I’m really not digging the Backgrounds. For instance, in Canada there is a lot of snow, but the snow looks rather card-boardish in quality. It’s almost as if the snow is 1-Demensional. Also I have to pick apart the fact that, on higher end systems, the characters and all that are sweet, but if you have a lower end system, the quality seems to go down a bit. That’s to be expected to a point, but even still I was surprised. <br /> <br /> All in all, the graphics in the PC version of THPS 3 are a mixed bag. In this day and age of GeForce 4 you’d expect more, however the fact remains that it is a six-month old game. <br /> <br /> While I’m not as enthused as some other people about “Ace of Spades”, THPS 3 retains all of its greatness in the sound category. Although I miss songs like “It’s just another Saturday” from Tony Hawk 2, I still love some of the tunes (yeah I’m hip dammit) from this newest incarnation of the series. Even when I’m not in a three-hour spell of Tony Hawk, I find myself chanting, “There’s 36 quite bitter beings that like to stack the bodies high”. The music is just top notch once again, although I did have a problem with the fact that Del that Funkee Homosapien (one of my favorite artist), was singing some crap song about washing up. Come on now!?! <br /> <br /> Not only does the music shine, but THPS 3 for PC also gets all the sound effects down great. Grinds sound so crisp, and the sound of just the board going across cement is nice. I mean these things songs little, and kind of corny, but when you get into THPS 3, you will know what the hell I mean. <br /> <br /> Once again, it has been done. The sound is about as great as the gameplay, and you can thank a spectacular soundtrack as well as great sound effects. You would think that they would have to run out of steam in the soundtrack department sometime, but NEVER!