Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

"Greatest skating game ever!"

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 is practically the greatest game of all time, practically climbing its way to the top and smashing all the others in the series in the process. The game improves on the first 3 installments, with a few new extras: absolutely no time limit, 14 skaters (with the return of Brazilian favorite Bob Burnquist), more interactions with pedestrians, and more interactive envirionments in levels. These all add up to make Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (in my opinion) the greatest game of not only the Tony Hawk series, but also the greatest game of all time.

Graphics: 9
If you had played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and saw the jaw-breaking graphics it had, you told me, and I told you that the next installment would have better graphics then you had just seen, you'd think I drank too much Snapple. The truth of the matter is, though, Tony Hawk 3's developers, Neversoft, worked extremely hard to make number 4 the greatest graphic experience ever. Non-player characters, or NPC's, will now open their mouths when talking, or do other actions from THPS3, such as clapping, falling, or shaking their fists. The environments are also much larger and prettier than those in Tony Hawk 3, and you'll notice it as soon as you get to the main menu (which, actually, is a level itself) .

Playability: 10
As always, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 takes the superb playing controls from the first 3 entries. Tony Hawk 2 introduced the Manual to players. Entry number 3 brought the Revert to players to create fantastic combos. Now , also as always, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 introduces a less pivotal, yet nonetheless cool move: the Spine Transfer. This new move allows combo experts to flawlessly go from one side of a spine to the other, and can be performed at any time in the air. The Spine Transfer (performed by pressing L + R simultaneously) can also be used on normal vert ramps, letting the gamer grind the edge of the quarterpipe or rail above it (as opposed to performing a Lip trick on the object). The all-new Career Mode has no time limit (as mentioned in the introduction). New players may notice that when you first unlock a level, you will have no assigned goals. In order to get one, you must ask a nearby pedestrian for a favor. These not only include ''S-K-A-T-E'' and ''Get the High/Pro/Sick Score'', but also include C-O-M-B-O (a new goal that requires getting all 5 letters in one combo), skitching a college professor's car, saving a painter from a hungry shark, setting a former Alcatraz prisoner free, ollieing the Magic Bum 5x (yes, once again), skating for your life from a horde of crazy dogs, and catching a group of penguins, with lots of others included. The Money system also returns, allowing you to save your cash to buy levels, skaters (including a certain bounty hunter =p), clothes, decks, movies, and more. There are also specific Pro Goals for each skater, which put his/her skills to the test.

Sound: 8
Lots of musical jams enter Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (mostly rock & hip-hop/rap, as usual), but there's not really anything music-wise to brag about. What's more amazing is the actual game sounds. All of the pro skaters are voiced by their actual real-life counterparts (even on bails).

In conclusion Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 crushes not only the rest of the series, but also any action-sports game on the market. If you like video games, like skating, and like music, you'll love.... no, anyone will love Tony Hawk 4.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/10/02, Updated 11/10/02