Vicarious Visions nailed the remake of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1-2. They have given us a reminder about how much fun this title was back in the day, how much fun it is today, and assured gamers that anyone can pick it up and play it without much fuss. Is it perfect? Nope, but it’s near-perfect fun.
Vicarious Visions had a tall task ahead of them. Being nearly three generations of PlayStations removed from the original Tony Hawk game, the developer had to remember and recapture what made Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater such a special game, as well as update it to some current generation features, and still make the user (you) feel like they had gotten something truly cool — not just an overhaul. They accomplished all those goals for the most part, while still maintaining the loosey-goosey non-exclusive club feeling that came with the game.
Let’s grind into it (Oh, that might not have worked, but it’s a skater reference — so there you go).
How Did I Do that Trick? Eh, Doesn’t Matter, Still Fun
The first thing you will find out about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1-2 is that both games are a bit of a button-mashing experience. While there are certainly some experts out in the gaming world that are going to conquer this game like it’s their full-time job, the majority of players are going to find pleasure and discovery in randomly mashing buttons at the same time and doing tricks, regardless of the intricate tutorial at the beginning of the game. The game is going to let you do that and it’s going to encourage you ever so slowly to start learning trick combinations, sometimes without you know it. That said, knowing how to pull off a nose-grind at a coffee shop skate rail in the midst of an abandoned mall will benefit you score-wise and benefit you with progression. Nailing the perfect combination in mid-air and landing somehow perfectly will push your score up and help you in the multiplayer/skate park competition. If that is what you want out of the game.
If you don’t want that, then you don’t have to study and dissect moves like you’re studying for the GRE. Regardless, button-mashing is 100% part of the joy from this series. It’s very loose in its execution, which might turn some off, but the game doesn’t demand that you learn every trick in the book to be successful in the game (t does help, though). Surprisingly, especially having revisited this game 20 years removed, the game’s controls are not at all frustrating because of its button-mashing nature. I don’t think I cursed once trying to pull off the perfect move and I didn’t feel any pressure to immediately go and learn every control combination. It felt like a relaxed design, where someone is saying, “Hey, you’ll get it. Just enjoy the ride.” Believe me, you want a game to tell you that in its design.
If there is any pressure with learning the game’s tricks, it’s knowing that the better you do at one location will lead to unlocking others. To balance out the pressure, the game includes goals for each skate location you visit. This might be score X amount of points, nose grinding a coffee shop rail, or grinding picnic tables at an abandoned school. These goals are slow progressions, but there are enough you can accomplish so that you can go far in the game without having to be the best skater in the world. It’s simply micro-encouragement, where the player can see they are getting better, but aren’t yelled at to do so all at once. This might be the reason why the game doesn’t feel frustrating, as it feels like you can make progress at your own pace by nailing mini-goals. Each place you visit has different goals attached to it, and you can go back and forth between places to achieve a goal total, which, once achieved, will unlock more locations. Both games feature this gameplay structure, which allows the gamer to focus both on getting better and having fun without much of any pressure.
Tony Hawk the RPG
When you aren’t pulling off killer moves at random, you can unlock perks and peeps as you successfully progress through the game. Gaining medals and money is the middle name of the game (it’s not the first name, nor the last, just the middle), as well as achieving goals along the way. While there are certainly goals within each park, there are player goals that you can achieve that gain you more points to upgrade your skater. You can upgrade the attributes of your skater, such as speed, air, and/or hang time. It’s like a skateboard RPG, just minus the magic. Anyway, there is a SLEW of attributes to choose from, which will give players motivation to keep chugging along through tough stages and seemingly impossible goals. I failed 10+ times for one goal (see coffee rail nose grinding for details), but the game made it so easy to get up and do it again that I just kept going until I completed the goal. Completing that goal got me a medal and opened up another location. It also allowed my points to upgrade some skater attributes, which led me to revisit some skate locations to do better (and possibly achieve goals I couldn’t easily prior). The more you can upgrade the skater equals out to the more access you have to secrets and a greater chance for achieving more skate park goals. It all plays hand-in-hand with each other, which makes this skating circle of life quite good.
You may not notice immediately, but as you progress you also get some dough along the way. By gaining money in the game through your goal successes, you can also upgrade your player’s appearance, as well as gain access to better boards. The money comes in $5-10 increments, which will bloom as you upgrade your players and unlock more levels. Again, it all works hand-in-hand.
All of the above is good motivation to keep getting your skating on.
Multiplayer
On the multiplayer side of the tracks, it feels like its own thing, though the upgraded attributes are carried over (which can be a good or bad thing when you consider the competition). While I didn’t play a tremendous amount of MP during this review period, I did have some slight fun with the offerings when the game went completely live. The two main modes that I played was Graffiti and Scoring.
Graffiti had players try to capture territories by nose grinding the rails then pulling off tricks at the end. The player with the most territory wins the game, and believe me the competition is quite stiff. I did really appreciate the color scheme of the territorial landscape (you are assigned a color, which attaches to captured territories). It was one of the cooler MP modes.
The scoring MP game gives players a goal, then the first to that numerical goal wins the match. Sadly, Tony Hawk himself (not really) appeared and won the match in less than a minute, which is insanely short for an MP experience. I’m not sure if Activision/Vicarious Visions needs to place lower competition with lower competition, but something has to be done to make this less quick and fairer. I’m sure this will get sorted out soon.
Anyway, for people who need an MP fix, this is a good one, but I wouldn’t say great. It feels like a secondary thought, as the second mode example really shouldn’t have been over quite so quickly. I didn’t even have time to enjoy the skate park. There are more modes, as well as an MP mode made for Pros, so I know people will love this. They can have at it.
While not exactly MP, there is a build your own skate park mode. If you can dig that sorta thing, then you enjoy it. I think it takes a much smarter person than me to do that more than once. Probably something for people with an infinite amount of time.
Presentation
Graphically it is delightful. Musically it is a delightful (nice soundtrack, but needs a bit more music). Everything you want or expect from a current-generation game with regard to presentation lies within this. This is one of the strongest upgrades that Vicarious Visions did for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2. While there is no big surprise with the visual upgrade, the developers managed to stoke the nostalgia fire with skate park structural reminders that will certainly trigger your childhood and have you pining for another Dreamcast (c’mon, SEGA!), while giving gamers detailed textures and cool models to sit back and fall into (over and over). The character animations, as well as a variety of skaters, are quite extensive as well. You will find something for everyone here, including skeleton enthusiasts.
Before we wrap here, let me also give props to the special effects peeps on the Vicarious Visions team — WOW, you all did a great job. The sounds of the skateboard, the take-off, the landing, even the bone-crunching falls, is absolutely perfect. It’s a small element of the game, but damn it’s good.
Now, the only complaint? There is a lot of unusual clipping in the game and some questionable gravity moments where your player might come down from a move in a, particularly awkward angle. These don’t kill the experience, but they certainly detail out some imperfections. Believe me, it could be worse.
Overall
Vicarious Visions nailed the remake of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1-2. They have given us a reminder about how much fun this title was back in the day, how much fun it is today, and assured gamers that anyone can pick it up and play it without much fuss. Is it perfect? Nope, but it’s near-perfect fun.
