Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

"THPS3, Now with Multiplayer!"

Tony Hawk 3 (THPS3, for short) was released for the PC, the same as its predecessors. The difference with this game is that unlike it's predecessors (which had little or no multiplayer games) THPS3 offers a full multiplayer mode over the internet. THPS3 is exactly what it says it is- a skating game that makes you grind, trick, and manual through levels. The skaters each have their own changeable ''special'' list, which allows them to pull big tricks for points. Each level has objectives to get to the next one, and the point of the game is to get all the levels.

Gameplay 8/10:

Although the game itself is great, the controls are VERY hard to use on a keyboard, and if you're gonna play this, then play it with a gamepad.

With that said, the game is very well done, and shows a different approach to the levels and objectives. The older games in the series had objectives that mainly involved ''Grind this pole'' or ''Do ________ over the pipe''. THPS3 keeps some of these objectives, and adds many new ones into the mix, but keeps some of the older types.

However, all levels have some of the same objectives, (Get a High/Pro/Sick score of varying points, Find the secret tape, find/destroy 5 objects,) and can get kind of repetitive doing the same thing over and over.

One of the things that was added into the PC version is the ability to play online. While the online game is quite fun, it wasn't debugged thoroughly enough (when I played multiplayer, there was a huge case of people getting ''stuck'' in the scenery because of server lag), which causes a huge number of restarts. Not that Gearbox hasn't tried to fix these bugs, but they can get annoying. Also, there are a bunch of glitches which allow people to cheat online, which were only fixed in a patch that came out much later.

Control: 5/10

THPS3, like almost all console ports, has it's control problems, namely that it's just very very hard to move your player and do the tricks on a keyboard. I highly reccomend a gamepad of some sort.

Sound: 9/10

The sound on the PC version is one of the best for any PC game I've played recently. Like most of today's games, the music is composed of various real songs, which in this case really fit the game. However, some people might not like a huge amount of punk music in their game, and for those people, you can place your own music files in the game to play. The sound effects are top notch (especially the guy in one of the levels who goes around screaming ''My tongue! My tongue! It's bleeding!'')

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics are good, and use smooth 3d on every environment. However, some of the people and other objects can appear papery, and in one of the levels, which has wires to grind on, the wires are really straight and rigid, and just aren't realistic.

Replayability: High

You'll want to replay this game after you beat it, just to get all the secret characters and levels.

The same game as all the other versions- with better multiplayer.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/17/02, Updated 11/17/02