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Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD Review (XBLA)

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Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD Review (XBLA) Activision
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater holds a special place in the hearts of many gamers, so when Activision announced that a sort of "Best Of" remake of the first two THPS games was coming, a lot of folks were pretty excited. The result is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD - a surprisingly accurate re-creation of the core gameplay and a handful of select levels from THPS 1 and 2. The good news is that the levels are just like you remember. The bad news is that the level selection is kind of bleak for 1200 MSP ($15) and the gameplay probably doesn't hold up as well as your rose tinted memories recall. With that said, THPS HD is still a ton of fun, but keep your expectations in check.
Game Details

  • Publisher: Activision
  • Developer: Robomoto
  • ESRB Rating: “T" for Teen
  • Genre: Skateboarding
  • Pros: Nostalgia overload; levels look nice; just as fun and addictive as ever
  • Cons: Starts slow; not the best selection of levels; no splitscreen; price

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD cherry picks skaters, songs, and levels from the first two THPS games. Many fan favorite older skaters didn't make the cut (no Steve Caballero, boo!) and were replaced with younger skate stars of today. You can also play as your Xbox 360 Avatar, which is kind of cool.

The levels are a bit more problematic. There are only seven of them - Warehouse, Mall, and Phoenix Downhill from THPS 1 and Hanger, School 2, Venice Beach, and Marseilles from THPS 2. Of those seven, there are three absolute classic great levels, two sort of so-so ones, and two completely awful ones. That isn't so good for $15 considering you could get THPS 1 and 2 on PSX or N64 or Dreamcast, or THPS 2X for Xbox (which is backward compatible on 360 along with THPS 3 and 4, THUG 1, and 2, and American Wasteland), for a lot less than that and get all of the levels good and bad.

The main single-player mode is a career where you complete objectives and buy better stats for your skater. Each skater is a separate career and replaying everything with each character is a possibility if you're really dedicated. You can also play Free Play in each level with no timer. An interesting new SP mode is Hawkman where dots are scattered around (kind of like Pac Man, get it) and you have to do tricks to collect the dots. Multiplayer is online only, so no splitscreen, but has graffiti and trick attack modes (no HORSE, though) along with a new mode called Big Head Survival where you have to do tricks to keep your head from expanding so large that it explodes.

Gameplay

Activision
The gameplay only has features up to THPS 2, which means the manual is in but other things like wall push, revert, spine transfer, etc. introduced in successive TH games aren't here. That means this is pure, simple, more street-focused combo territory. Likewise, the objectives and game structure are based on the first couple of THPS games meaning that there is a two-minute timer for each level and a list of objectives (high scores, hitting specific gaps, collecting SKATE letters or other objects, etc.) that you have to complete. We are actually big fans of this style of levels over the newer open world games. The objectives are all the same as they were back in the day in the classic games, plus some added goals in each stage, so finding collectibles or hidden DVDs or opening up secret areas in levels are all exactly the same as they used to be. Of course, this game makes things easier by giving you a map in the start menu that shows where every objective is as well as a full gap list, which should help newbies to the game or if you managed to forget most of this stuff in the 10+ years since THPS 1 and 2 came out (guilty).

One thing that needs to be said about the gameplay is that your skater starts off with low stats and you need to complete objectives to earn money to buy more stat points. I've seen a lot of initial impressions of the game where people complain that it is too slow or they don't jump high enough or blah blah blah compared to the classic games. The problem is that they just haven't upped their skater's stats enough. Once you play for a while and build your skater up, things get a lot easier. It has to be said that the physics aren't 100% like they were in the old versions of the games, but it really isn't too bad. Just like the different versions of the old releases all felt slightly different from each other, THPS HD also has a slightly different feel. You get used to it after a while.

I also feel that a lot of the initial negative impressions people seem to be having is that they expect the games to play faster or easier than they actually do, which is pure nostalgia driven fantasy. Later games in the series played a lot faster and were easier because the gameplay got tighter and new moves and abilities were added. THPS 1 and 2 were (and still are, we actually played the old games to compare before writing this review) kind of brutally difficult and unforgiving and a little slow (particularly THPS 1, THPS 2 holds up pretty well even today), but once you figured out the physics and controls and levels things got a lot more fun. THPS HD is the same way - it starts off difficult and slow, but gets better the more you play it. It took us a little bit to remember how to do things and get back in the THPS mindset, but once we did we didn't have any complaints with the gameplay.

One final gameplay note - We used the analog stick exclusively in our time with the game and had zero problems with the controls. You don't have to use the d-pad to play this game well, despite what a vocal minority will try to make you believe.

Graphics & Sound

Visually, THPS HD's versions of the levels are very different from the classic versions. The textures and everything are a lot more detailed and realistic than the huge flat textures they had to use back in the PSX days. The skaters look good as well and the animation is nice and smooth. There are some occasional glitches where your skater will sort of spaz out or the added ragdoll physics when you bail are kind of over the top, but they aren't so bad.

The sound is also solid for the most part. The sound effects are better than they used to be. The soundtrack is a mix of select songs from THPS 1 and 2 along with some new tracks, and overall the song list is decent. A lot of gamers' memories of these games are associated with the music, so not having the exact same tracks is a little disappointing, but since this is the Xbox 360 and you can use any music you want, it is a problem that is easy to solve.

Bottom Line

Activision
It takes a few rounds to get back into the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater mindset, but once you do THPS HD is a solid trip down memory lane. There are certainly some flaws - the level selection isn't ideal, $15 is probably $5 too much, and the gameplay of the original THPS games hasn't aged as well as nostalgia wants us to believe - but once you get back into the groove you can still have a lot of fun here. In the end, though, THPS HD is kind of a hard game to recommend. Normally for an XBLA game I'd say try the demo and decide from there, but the demo for this game is awful and not representative of the full experience at all, so that doesn't work here. Instead, my advice is this - weigh the hassle of dragging out your old game systems and old games (and likely an old CRT TV to actually play them on) against the 1200 MSP ($15) you'll pay for THPS HD. You'll have fun either way.
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.

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