xeno3998's Full Review: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for PlayStation 2
I hated Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 with a passion. It failed to impress me in every area - little ingenuity in the courses, impossible objectives and crappy music were just some of the issues I had with it. Naturally, I wasn't very excited about the prospect of a third Pro Skater iteration on Playstation 2. It looked like the same shit that was part 2 ported to a more powerful console. Thankfully, that's not exactly the case as Pro Skater 3 actually improves upon many of the faults of the previous game.
In this third Pro Skater release, you get a choice of about 15 skaters. You get the classic stable of playable skaters including Tony Hawk himself, Elissa Steamer and Kareem Campbell among others, as well as a few new additions and hidden characters Darth Maul and Wolverine. Similar to THPS2, every skater has statistical ratings in areas like Rail Balance and Speed. Every character also has his/her own set of boards, and can have their appearance and said board tuned to taste. Thankfully, the manner in which you earn boards and stat-enhancements no longer comes in the form of an asinine money system. Now, you enhance stats with Stat Points which are found in the levels. As well, instead of purchasing new boards, you have to find them in the levels, although their placement is much less obvious than the stat points.
For levels, you get Foundry which is similar to the Warehouse of the first title, Canada which has to be one of the best courses in the game, a much better Los Angeles stage than the one in THPS2, a horrible level called Suburbia, and another horrible level called Airport. There are also three competition levels where you skate three rounds (called "Heats") and have your best two runs totaled and judged against those of competitors. In total, there are about 8 or 9 levels in game, which about meets the THPS standard.
One major improvement over the last game is the levels themselves. Unlike the dud that was THPS2, there are only 3 crappy levels here. They are Airport, Suburbia, and Rio... may they never be spoken of again. The rest of the levels are gold, featuring excellent designs and clever objectives (such as stopping a car chase in the LA level). Also unlike the last game, the objectives aren't impossible to figure out and accomplish. Things have simplified which makes this sequel much less of a hunting game and strengthens the play value of the game on a whole.
One small problem I have to bring up is the audacity of certain objectives. For instance, in the Canada level you have to skate board into some idiot that got his tongue stuck on a pole. Then in Airport level, one of the objectives dictates to bring airplane tickets to someone on the other side of airport. Another stupid objective that screams "We're Neversoft and we're all out of good ideas!" is jumping on spherical cement objects in the LA level for no apparant reason. Neversoft was on the right track when it implemented objectives which tie into other objectives (such as causing an earthquake to open up a whole new part of the level), so it's a little disappointing that they couldn't have gone the whole way and made all of the objectives tie into each other somehow, and possibly into the theme of the level.
Though THPS3 still, unfortunately, emphasizes street skating over vert, the play style that is street skating isn't as painful as it was in THPS2. Now, the trick opportunities for vert have been improved, as well as for street skating. You can easily pull off a combo that combines street skating and vert in this game, which is a vast improvement. Though I still would've prefered a larger amount of ramps and more big-air trick opportunities like in part one.
THPS3 improves upon the last game in many other areas as well. The balance meter for rails and lips has been perfected and simplified, resulting in the most effective rendition of it out of every game in the series. Balancing after ten rail-switches has never been easier. Also, the soundtrack has been improved, with about as many great songs as bad songs on the soundtrack. The previous title featured a horde of horrible metal bands that did nothing but sour the experience. This time however, the soundtrack includes bands such as Guttermouth, House of Pain (yes, they still exist), Adolescents,
and my favorite of the bunch, Del the Funky Homosapien. One further area of improvement is the addition of Network Play which is self-explanatory.
Oh yeah, and there are Create-A-Skater and Create-A-Level modes here as well. Did I bother with them? No. Like I said a year ago in my THPS2 review, 'Create-A'-anything features should be restricted to wrestling titles, as those seem to be the only games that can pull them off well. I really don't give a damn about creating my own level from scratch and then traversing it with a skater of my own creation - it failed to interest me last time and I'm pretty sure it would've done the same this time. However, if you like that sort of crap, THPS3 delivers it in treasure-loads. Dig in, sailah!
In terms of visuals, THPS3 looks about as good as Acclaim's Dave Mirra 2, only with levels that look slightly better and skaters slightly worse. The courses are well-designed and there's little in the way of jaggies or slowdown (although slowdown does happen in heavy traffic). The game looks very clean overall and avoids blockiness, something that DM2 didn't. The reason I only gave the graphics score a 4/5 is that, for all it's purity, THPS3 hardly makes use of the PS2's power. The visuals here could've easily been done on Dreamcast, something inexcusable for a second generation PS2 game.
Oh how I wish Epinions would allow me to give out a 3.5/5. Much like Eve of Extinction, I'm forced to bump that up due to the positive impression Tony Hawks 3 left with me. Call it 'respecting the intangible', as I would have otherwise scored this fairly unoriginal Tony Hawks release a 3/5. If you were left disappointed by part 2 like I was, do yourself a favor and try the third game. Most of the problems have been rectified and the game feels much more solid than the last one. It still doesn't match up with the original but it's the closest thing to it.
Also of note, if you enjoy or have enjoyed this game, do try out AirBlade (PS2 also), Jet Grind Radio (Dreamcast), Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX (PS2), and Jet Set Radio Future (XBox). All are superior, in my humble opinion.
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