Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

"Still the King of the Dreamcast Skaters!"

After playing the PSX version of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, I thought to rent this one out to see if there was anything new to take a look at in the Dreamcast version. What comes as a surprise, is that it's the same game that you've probably played on the PSX, and if you haven't played it on Playstation yet, you'll find that the game is exceptionally clean and crisp, with all of the details you'd expect from a great skateboarding sequel with the King of Boarder's name tacked to it.

This has just about everything you need, save for Tony Hawk playing with you. Giving you control over some of the most influential skaters of our generation, you have new skaters in the line up, including Steve Caballero, Eric Koston: The creator of the K-Grind, and Rodney Mullen, the mad dog championship skater. You can't find a better line up than this in a skateboarding game! Tricks are a big part of Pro Skater 2, in which some of them you have to buy and apply to the skater of your choice. These tricks can range from the most simple, to the most death defying, and it's up to you to basically customize your skater. Speaking on that, there is a new custom skater option, in which you can choose just what your personal skater can and cannot do. Will they become a Vertical Ramp Giant, or will they be a concrete burning, rail grinding trickster? That is left solely for you to decide.

The Skate Park Editor is the true gem of Pro Skater 2, in which it gives you the Sim-City like control of creating, and skating a park that you build, at the cost of one memory block per park.so get out your Mega Memory Cards, it's truely a blast. You'll find that, through using the editor, it's very simple to get drawn into creating your own little dream park. If you're not much of the creative type, then there are about 30 or so Pre-Made skate parks for you to choose from. Attributes and Boards are no longer earned through points, but through cash. The Cash can be found throughout the various stages in some locations that require you to use certain tricks to get there. Some of these tricks, which are brand new to Pro Skater 2, include the Wall Ride, the Boneless, and Switch position. There are several goals to try and attain throughout each stage, giving you a wide range of things to do. The bottom-line here? You need to make the cash, to proceed on to the next level...without it, you can't open up a new stage, you can't buy new boards, and you can't buy new attributes!

Perfect control. This time around, instead of righting the board for you, you have to do it yourself through trial and error to get the timing down. Some Air Tricks take practice, to know the height you need to be, and the way you need to land. It can get a little confusing, when you think that you're throwing out a heavy combo, only to end it with an impressive trick, and not land right. Speaking of control, the balance factor in Pro Skater 2 has been greatly improved from the first. You can accurately gauge just what you're doing, and how, with a few simple taps of the directional pad to right yourself up on the long haul grinds! What the Dreamcast offers up is the option to use a rather dead on analog stick or to the use the control pad. Using either will bring most tricks off without a problem, although the grinding balance is probably best suited to the directional pad. You'll find that there isn't much to complain about while trying to learn, even though the learning curve is difficult at first.

Near perfect visual folks, there is no getting around that. With several new locals to skate through and grind, you're hard pressed to find another game like this. Everything is as real as it can get through a video game, from the tricks, to the boards, to the dreadlocks dude in the skate shop. With the amount of tricks that you have, you'll always find something new to look at, and the different poses you get when you smash headlong into the ground. From the Hanger to the School, and from there to locals around the world, each stage had detail put to it. With the addition of new graphics, you can see the writing on the signs, and the bricklayers in the wall...talk about clean and crisp. Where the perfection comes to an end, is in the way of some image break up and strange camera an angle on certain tricks. Unless you're a pro at this, the camera angle switch can screw you up in the middle of a heavy grind.
Playstation owners will find that the game has all of the familiar elements that the THPS 2 on Playstation has, except the moves have a better fluid movement than the PSX offered. Outside of this, nothing has really changed, and all of the same move animations are back, from the painful looking Sacktap to the Laserflip. Pretty intense stuff.

For a game that is basically sports, the soundtrack is killer. It adds in some rock, some alternative, a couple of dance tracks, and yes some hip-hop. With some headlining bands like Papa Roach and Powerman 5000, it's really hard to find a game that keeps the tempo, and keep you listening. Each track is lined up through the sound level option, so if you come across one that you don't like, it can always be switched up to listen to something a little different.
The sound effects, in spite of having the music up full blast, come out clean and clear through your speakers. Each bail is emphasized with a sickening crunch and every grind has the traditional metal on metal clashing sound. Tricks landed, and tricks failed, are easily distinguished, so there is no mistake in what you're doing. The down side however, is the lack of continuity on the music, sometimes, it takes a minute for the track to load, and you'll be listening to silence for a few seconds, which can be a downside if you're jamming out, only to have the music stop.

While near perfect, it's not. It has everything that a skateboard affectionate would want, and everything a serious X-Gamer would need to play. It's got the tricks, the levels, the goals, and the skaters...what else could you want? Filled with several options, the most impressive being the Skate Park Editor, and a killer soundtrack that is nearly impossible to top in a game of it's genre, Dreamcast owners will find much solace in playing through. Playstation gamers will find this version the same as the Dreamcast, only with a few new additions that mainly center around the fact that the visuals look cleaner than the PSX version's does. Outside of that, only Dreamcast gamers will get a kick out of this title and buy to own!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/27/01, Updated 11/20/01