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Tony Hawks Pro Skater Review
Gavin Frankle
00/12/0000
This franchise has got to have had a bigger impact on the man's fame then his entire career could have possibly hoped to achieve.
Skateboarding is probably one of, if not the most unforgiving sport in existence. There's a fine line between glory and failure. Unfortunately, the latter usually means eating asphalt, and yet people still try. I remember trying for days to learn how to grind. Why? Because my brother could, and well, when I was a kid I thought he was the coolest person alive.
A few days later, bloodied and bruised I gave up. I realised that I had neither the patience, nor the skill to do it. Now, a number of years later I'm almost tempted to try again, almost...
That ladies and gentleman is all the result of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. It started out on the Playstation and though intrigued, I convinced myself that I didn't need it, then came the N64 version and my resolve started to waver, but still I resisted. Finally, the Dreamcast incarnation arrived and I cracked. Everything from the presentation to the music screams "Play me!", but it's the addictive gameplay that prevents you from stopping. It's as though you can feel the game laughing at you(and thanks to VMU support it mocks you as best it can) and determined not to give up, you try and try and try, and still it mocks you. Then, in a single moment it all changes, suddenly you go from a wannabe to a somebody, you like it and you want to do it again and again and again.
The graphics, while superior to all other console versions, don't make full use of the machine's capabilities. Sure, the game runs at a constant 30fps and everything is in high-resolution, but I can't help but feel disappointed. The game could have looked so much better. That said, the environments are fantastic sporting zero fog or draw-in and providing an amazing amount of grindable surfaces. If you can see it, you can probably do a trick on it.
The music fits the game to perfection, and in those brief moments where you aren't thinking about how you're going to pull the next trick off you actually notice just how well it blends with the game. It also helps to psyche you up for your next big trick, which is much appreciated after planting your face square into the wall at the end of a huge grind.
Gameplay-wise THPS is right up there with games like Crazy Taxi. The concept is so simple that it makes you wonder why no developer has managed to do it this well before. In Career Mode you are required to earn tapes in each level in order to unlock subsequent ones. Getting tapes is done by meeting certain objectives, like collecting all the letters required to spell the word SKATE or beating a certain score. There's also a Free Mode that allows you to skate around for as long as you like in order to perfect those near impossible stunts.
On the two-player front, there's Grafitti, Trick Attack and Horse modes. The first pits you and a friend in the same arena, as you pull off tricks, you 'tag' the relevant area, the objective is to turn as many 'taggable' areas into your colour as possible before the time limit is up. The Trick Attack mode, is similar to the normal single-player game in that all you do is bust as many tricks as you can in the given time limit and whoever has the highest score at the end of the run is the winner. Though, as an added benefit you can bump into your rival, thus spoiling a possible winning run for them. Lastly is the Horse mode, in this mode one player performs a trick and the second player must then perform a better trick on the same piece of equipment. The losing player receives a letter from the word horse. The first player to spell out 'HORSE' is the loser.
What makes the gameplay so good is the ease with which people can get into the game, but hours of practice and a fair amount of skill is required to master the techniques that rake in the massive scores. The control setup is superb, allowing you to pull of a variety of tricks with relative ease, and when you screw up that last second trick you'll have no-one to blame but yourself. As I alluded to earlier, aside from just saving your game, the VMU also taunts or praises you as you play. Pull of a monster combo and it praises your effort, screw up and it'll rub your nose in it by calling you a loser or telling you much you suck. As stupid as it sounds, there's nothing quite as annoying as having that dinky piece of plastic calling you a loser, when you know that you just messed up what was undoubtedly going to be a winning run.
While I don't pretend that this is anywhere near as gruelling as the actual sport, it's the best digital representation of the sport that I have ever seen and almost makes me want to give the real life version a go again. If you don't own another version of this game then you can't go wrong by picking up the Dreamcast one.
