Game: Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2 Publisher: Activision Developer: Vicarious Visions Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC Prices: $39.99 (Standard), $49.99 (Deluxe Edition), $99.99 (Collector's Edition) Review Copy Provided: Yes Platform Reviewed: PC Before we begin the review let's take a quick rewind on these two games, and how everything went down to these two being remade. The history of Pro Skater 1 and 2Tony Hawk's Pro Skater During the following releases of Sega's Top Skater and EA's Street Sk8er, as Activison went to identify skateboarding games as a growing market of the gaming industry to conclude they've wanted to resonate the younger audiences. They went on to preceding a project with Neversoft which previously released a third person shooter titled "Apocalypse" within nine months (yes, you heard me right. Nine months.) to be involved in there new project. Although, Neversoft never developed a Sports video game before that the development team felt confident to accomplish the tasks before the completion around 1999. Meanwhile with the project's development , Neversoft would spend lunch breaks at a bowling alley near the studio, where they would play and study Sega's Top Skater in the arcade, which the game served a strong influence, along with the observance of the skaters that were in the X Games. Sadly, Neversoft thought that Top Skater's lacked the sense of fun they were trying to aim for, as the racetrack element was retained in two of the game's levels, and thought of adding envisioned areas kind of like a school. Mostly through the games development they prioritized fun in the game than realism in it. The Engine of Pro Skater 1 The engine was using a modified version of Neversoft's third person shooter "Apocalypse" , and during the prototype they used Bruce Willis's character as a playable character during the development stage, then when the game reached the demonstrable state, The team realized they could provided a professional skateboarder to aid the remainder of it's production. During the time, Tony Hawk was a popular figure within skateboarding, and as of September 1998 Activison had established a Contract with Tony Hawk with a arranged meeting between him and Neversoft, and with the presentation of the game they have worked on. Tony Hawk was so far impressed by the Neversoft's design in their devotion to skateboarding, the controls engine of the games early build and agreed to lend his name and involvement of the game's development, sadly Hawk tuned down Activison's offer of a one time buyout for the permanent use of his name and likeness on the game of a favor royalty deal in which Tony would earn a percentage on every copy sold. As of result in the series starting off with releasing it was a eventual success, with Tony Hawk receiving ten times the initial offer within two years. On January, 14th, 1999, Activision would announce Tony Hawk has signed a agreement with adding him to the game, and during the games interview, the senior vice president at the time "Mitch Lasky" stated in a interview that the game was to "reflect Tony's signature style-an intense mix of acrobatics and hard-core technical skating". Hawk also remarked that he had " always wanted to help create a video game that represented the reality and excitement of professional skateboarding" and ended up spending some development time playing builds, and providing feedback even with Tony also selecting a group of professional skaters to be included as playable characters based on their skills, personalities and diversity, and they've also recieved a cut of the royalties to select their own own attire and special tricks. The game also used Tony's Hawk's famed performance called "The 900" as a moveset in the game, and also took inspiration of Super Mario 64 with instead of collecting stars, you would collect Video Tapes in certain objectives. Manuals were also intended to be in Pro Skater but was sadly not added due to time constraints. As of all the crazy times it was for it the game finally released September 29th, 1999 for the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Dreamcast, and N-Gage. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 After the first games release, Neversoft around September 24th, 1999 announced they were looking for programmers and designers, although the first game released on the 29th. During the following week on October 4th, Activision announced the acquisition to Neversoft, and in April, 26th 2000 they announced a sequel to the Pro Skater series was in development for the Nintendo 64, Gameboy Color, PlayStation, Dreamcast and PC. The game was showed off at E3 2000 as a non-playable demonstration, and the soundtrack was revealed on July, 28th 2000. Most of the engine for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 was more enhanced than the previous title and a modified version of the engine used for Neversoft's earlier title "Apocalypse", as Pro Skater 2 was the first to use a park editor, character customization and manuals which the first game didn't have manuals due to the time constraints of the first. On September, 19th 2000, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 released on Playstation, PC, Gameboy Color/Advance/Gameboy, and Dreamcast but strangely enough the Nintendo 64 version was delayed due to Activision wanted the first game to sell on the Nintendo 64 for little longer before it comes to their platform to late 2001. Before the games worldwide release at a Best Buy in West Lost Angeles they had a event placed by the game's namesake Tony Hawk which he would personally sign autographs of the game and that KROQ-FM disc jockey Jed the Fish, who also played with guests competing for a variety of prizes. Strangely enough Activison decided Treyarch to precede with the release of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2x on October, 3rd 2001. With the time of the games history, lets actually get into the game shall we? The Games Itself + Controls, etc.The game so far is just amazing in visuals and game-play wise, and noting myself that these being my first games of the series going in made me quite concerned of likely hating it, but strangely enough I started liking it a lot, from the previous titles from what I've heard that one of the two games had a camera issue, and to see in this game that the Cameras are fixed. Even though this is the first major game since Pro Skater 5 which didn't do so well upon the critics, sales and was Robomodo's final game which had shut down in August 2016. Although, in the game you mostly score points by doing tricks, complete the objectives in levels to progress in game, even if you are new to it, they have a tutorial area to teach you the basics and you can do the objectives or even stay there till you feel like you got the hang of things, so far the game is very like the arcades with these objectives and scores to continue on. The characters you can play in the game are: Your own character, Tony Hawk (obviously), Bob Burnquist, Jamie Thomas, Rodney Mullen, Steve Caballero, Bucky Lasek, Chad Muska, Elissa Steamer, Eric Koston, Geoff Rowley, Kareem Campbell, Rune Glifberg, Andrew Reynolds , Aori Nishimura, Leo Baker, Leticia Bufoni, Lizzie Armanto, Nyjah Huston, Riley Hawk, Shane O'Neill and Tyshawn Jones plus The Ripper*. (*if your get the deluxe edition) There is even secret characters to find in game also like: Officer Dick and Roswell Alien! Another issue so far is that the skaters don't have their own goals, and that the load times can take awhile. Even there is modifications in the game that are like training wheels for players to practice getting used to the concept and just use it to have fun, but the game has challenges and objectives to gain XP and level up, which that most likely the first two didn't have at all, and if they did then forgive me there. The controls feel very nice, and consistent to the buttons, even with the frame rate being Uncapped on PC just feels like an amazing port though sadly, on certain moves like the 900 move is kinda hard to hit on the certain button as most of the time you hit the buttons correctly you might end up hitting a other trick with it, so it's best to change the trick input to a other button layout, which was a another on the game, and yes the PlayStation 4/Pro, Xbox One/S/X runs around 60FPS and this game is so faithful to the original all around. Multiplayer, and local multiplayer is where the challenge can get serious but fun at the same time, you can play with your friends locally or go against players around the world and battle it out. I tried multiplayer once and got destroyed but then made me realize to get good, but still had fun.. The game also introduces, revert, spine transfer and also wall plant, and create your own skater, skate park and with the Create-A-Skater/Create-A-Park modes where you can publish your own park or check out others parks, even like the one I saw on there called "Shout Out to SimpleFlips" (oh, wowie). With challenges there fun and quite challenging, even with it going into these certain places: Rookie, Pro and Expert, and when you begin you will be placed around Rookie as your start off your journey up through the game, and there are challenges for multiplayer, and if you're a completionist... I wish you ton of luck! VerdictAlthough one of the control inputs on a move isn't so great they still pulled it off, but with this game using the same coding Neversoft had for the originals to modernize the handling.
They keep the game feeling the same as the originals and now looking like this with Unreal Engine is just phenomenal by Vicarious Visions. Honestly am gonna say that, I recommend this game if your looking for a game to have fun or with friends. Quote: "A faithful remake with a tremendous turnaround from the previous game of the series" Rating: 9.0/10 Pros:
Cons:
Until then.. GAME ON! -Timothy Stambaugh (Tim/Timthegamer12)
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