Pros: Graphics are crisp, soundtrack is fantastic, replay value is high
Cons: The game becomes ridiculously difficult towards the later levels
The Bottom Line: Get ready to kick some nollies, goofy foot into a revert and thrash some mad 360 japans into nose manuals. This one kicks major you-know-what!
Bowenkge's Full Review: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 for PlayStation 2
Intro
I bought 'Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2' when it came out years ago and I gotta say, the game drove me friggin' nuts. The soundtrack was repetitive, the graphics were kinda clunky and most importantly perhaps, it was just hard. Hard enough to make me cry like a 5-year-old with a skinned knee who just found out there is no Santa Clause. Not that I actually cried, I just sulked, for a long long time. Anyways, when Tony Hawk 4 recently came out, I should have remembered the pain and heart ache, but I didn't, so I gave it a whirl and I gotta say, the tears were from joy this time, joy joy joy.
Game Basics
Tony Hawk 4 is the, if you can believe it, 4th installment of the popular 'Pro Skater' series. In these games you play as either a famous skater or a created one and solve various missions and goals such as getting a high score by doing numerous tricks, or winning races or tormenting security guards and the like. Tony Hawk 4 has, like good sequels should, greatly improved upon the original. There are a whole huge slew of new tricks your skaters can do, and with the addition of the revert, a quick reversal of the direction the board is facing, you can link into huge combos, wrack up ridiculous scores, and generally feel better about yourself as a person. In the course of the game you can take a world tour, going to Alcatraz, London and Hawaii to name a few, and each of the levels is recognizably done. You don't go to a level titled 'New York' and have it look just like the San Francisco level or the Montana level. You go where the game takes you and you know it.
Graphics
The graphics aren't quite state of the art, but they're pretty smooth and crisp. The disturbing, and yet strangely gratifying, wipe outs are bloody and uncomfortably realistic. The splatter of blood and the uncomfortable flailing of limbs when your character smacks on the pavement makes me flinch just thinking about it. The biggest plus graphically for me was the utter lack of lag time. The character moves extremely quickly and sometimes there's a lot going on on the camera but the action never slows down. Never. Even when you want it to just stop for two seconds so you can breath, no dice. Zoom! There you go, speeding by. No lag time is super good stuff as far as I'm concerned, and THPS 4 makes a speedy delivery.
Sound
Wahoo!! Part of the success of the series has been the great soundtracks. Made up of a melange of hip hop and hard rock songs, the THPS soundtracks sound like your average college radio station, raw and heavy. THPS 4 continues the trend with some of the coolest hip hop and hard rock songs of today AND yesterday. I was stoked when "TNT" from AC-DC popped on. Yep, the range of music has increased and It's just great. The other great sound aspect to mention is the bone crunching that goes along so well with the realistic blood splatter. For such a fun and friendly game, the crashes are disturbing.
Replay Value
The replay value on this one is high. The levels are huge and there are about 20 missions to complete in each, and since they're completely non-linear, you can go back and retry a level multiple times. Add to that the number of characters you can choose from, on top of the fact you can create your own character with a whole lot of options, then in a sense it's a new game every time you play. Plus there's the multi-player options. Oh, the multi-player! You can play games like Horse or Capture the Flag with your friends in the comfort of your own home or you can log on to the computer and play with even more people all over the world. Multi-player can be a lot of fun, unless your buddies are a lot better then you are, then it's a pain in the bum.
The Downside
The game is hard. I like a challenge as much as anybody, but no game should ever get you to the point where you're throwing the controller and cursing your best friend to a millenia of hellish torture, that's just not good cricket. Also, the whole thing just loses it's appeal after awhile. The levels are different, and there is a lot to do, but after awhile you realize that it's just the same old thing over and over again. The location may change, but you're still jumping over a wall, or grinding on a park bench whether you be in San Francisco or at The Zoo. Monotany is never that far behind.
Overall
'Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4' is fun to play, has some slick graphics, kickin' soundtrack and, a great multi-player function. The downside is that it gets hard as heck to the point you'd rather poke yourself in the eye rather then play and it gets dull after awhile. Granted this could perhaps be because I rented the game over the weekend and therefore played it for like 4 days straight and anybody would get burnt out on a game after that. Regardless, it was still a bit dull after a while which is probably why I haven't bought the game, but then again, I'm poor. In the end, THPS 4 is a great addition to the series, and, in my humble epinion, the best one yet.
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