Could Somebody Please Tell Me What The Big Deal Is?
Written: Jan 30 '05
Product Rating:
Pros: Good control, decent graphics, innovative design
Cons: Very frustrating and repetitive, too unforgiving in places.
The Bottom Line: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is/was a grossly overrated action/extreme sports game that relied heavily on its innovative idea for its critical acclaim.
marty1982's Full Review: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for PlayStation 1
When Tony Hawk's Pro Skater came out in the Fall of 1999, it was immediately rewarded with tons of praise and critical fanfare. Many hailed it as the most groundbreaking extreme sports game ever made, and one publication even went as far as to call it "Overall Best Game Of 1999." Having played this and many of the Tony Hawk games dozens of times, I somehow have a slightly different opinion of the aging franchise.
But Marty, Why Are You Slamming One Of The Greatest Games Of The Last Generation?
I suppose the original's acclaim stemmed largely from the fact that it took the gameplay mechanics of 3D platformers like Super Mario 64 and gave them a new kick (pun not intended) by tossing in a skateboard and replacing the open fields, caverns, forests, etc. with skate parks. Unfortunately, here in lies most of the game's problems. For starters, everything you do in the original THPS is timed. This may not seem so bad on paper, but when you get to the later stages, the time takes the frustration factor to extremes. Sometimes it gets to the point where if you even do so much as miss a ramp, you've automatically got to hit "Pause" and "Restart Mission" because of the ridiculously fast pace of the missions! In the first two missions, the objectives are reasonable enough. But come third mission (at a shopping mall in New York), you will probably spend as much time "Restarting Missions" as you spent actually carrying them out. It's frustrating and not very fun in the long run.
Adding insult to injury, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is very repetitive. I understand there are obvious limitations to what you can do in an Extreme Sports game, but if you're gonna make the game so insanely frustrating, you could at least throw in a little variety. It's a shame on-foot missions weren't implemented into the franchise until Tony Hawk's Underground (albeit poorly implemented) because they probably would've worked wonders in a game like this. Simply put, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater demands so much of your time that once you finally get good at it, you've already lost interest. On a final note, the scoring system is horribly unforgiving. You could perform all the tricks and grinds in the world at once, but if you wipe out ONCE, you get absolutely no points despite all that effort. Totally unfair and inexcusable for a game that demands so much out of your repertoire of tricks.
Well, is there ANYTHING good about the game?
On the bright side, the control in THPS is pretty tight. All your skaters control differently depending on their attributes, and learning the basic moves is fairly easy (mastering them, however, is another story). One thing about the original that always annoyed me, however, was the unpredictability of grinding. A stamina meter for grinds wasn't implemented until THPS 3, so here you're stuck carefully watching your skater and pretty much guessing when it's time to jump off the ramp before beefing and losing all your points.
I also credit the game's designers for at least attempting something a little different. A skateboard game set in the style of Super Mario 64 was certainly a good idea, and I commend the developers for having the guts to pull it off in a market that was, admittedly, crowded with stagnant game ideas at the time. It's just a shame that the final mixing of the two didn't work quite so well.
Graphics and Sounds
The graphics in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater were nicely rendered and had some excellent character/course design. Still, there was nothing really awe-inspiring about them. Because of the PSX's low resolution, the characters were grainy and pixelated, and the colors were a bit drab. It's a reasonably good looking game, but certainly not Final Fantasy quality.
With the exception of Primus's Jerry Was A Racecar Driver, I never particularly cared for the old school punk/ska soundtrack of the original THPS, though that depends mostly on personal tastes in music. What I found aggravating about the soundtrack was the way Neversoft clipped many of the songs short, sometimes only playing half of the entire song (the aforementioned Primus song for example). Sound effects are realistic enough, but nothing to shout about.
So What Are Your Final Thoughts?
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is IMHO an average action game that generally got a lot of critical praise for its admittedly innovative design. But take out the innovation and get to the core gameplay, and you'll find that THPS is a very frustrating extreme sports title that gets old fast. If you're looking for a good extreme sports title, I'd strongly recommend sticking with EA Sports' vastly superior SSX franchise. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is a once-decent skateboard game that's well past its prime.
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