Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

"A Great Addition To The Tony Hawk Series, But Not Without Faults"

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 is the newest addition to the Tony Hawk series. They have combined the best elements of the previous games into one new game. This game has bigger levels, the goals are a lot more fun, and there is a lot more stuff to do than the previous games. This is the game that Tony Hawk fans, and many other people have been waiting for, and it was well worth the wait.

Graphics- 8/10
Well it's a Tony Hawk game, so like the previous games the graphics are good but nothing spectacular. They look almost exactly like Tony Hawk 3, except they seemed to have brightened things up and added more textures. Things are still a little blocky, and the object and character models aren't that much improved, but that's something most people can live with. The only thing that disappoints me about the graphics is the face of the characters. They look flat and have little detail, unlike Tony Hawk 3. The game runs at a pretty good speed but more importantly the frame rate doesn't slow down. So overall the graphics are pretty good, but they don't compare to other next-generation games.

Gameplay- 9/10
This is the most important part of any game and the best part of Tony Hawk 4. There have been some major improvements since Tony Hawk 3. The biggest is that when you now start Career Mode, you are not instantly put on the two-minute timer. You can now explore the level as much as you want before you start an objective (which you do by talking to people in the level). This makes the game a lot more fun because you can free skate (which is half the fun of the game) as much as you want before you actually start to do something. The next two new things are improvements on tricks. In every Tony Hawk game they have came out with a new major trick element every game, and for Tony Hawk 4 they have 2 new ones. The first is the ability to ''skitch'' on the backs of cars. Basically you go up to a car and press forward and you can hold on to the back of it while it moves. The second thing is the ''spine transfer’’, which allows you to transfer from the side of one spine (a spine is just two half or quarter pipes back to back) to the other side.

There are a huge number of tricks in Tony Hawk 4. You can only have a certain number at a time, but you get to pick exactly which ones you want for all categories. In my opinion they have perfectly mixed the money aspect of the game with the point aspect of it. The only thing that you use money for is to unlock secret character modes and miscellaneous stuff and since you get most of you money from completing goals, finding money is not absolutely necessary to complete the game. Tony Hawk 4 has the same options as the previous games. ''Career Mode'' is where the main game takes place, ''Single Session'' is a 2 minutes run through a level trying to get as many points as possible, and ''Free Skate'' is just that, you in a level just doing nothing but exploring and doing whatever else you want to do. There is also a 2-Player mode, which put you and another player against each other doing things from collecting the most points to chasing each other around. They have also added two new 2-Player modes. You can also create you own park and skater, with more pieces and options than there were in the other games. There is no online option like there is on the Tony Hawk 4 for X-Box and PlayStation 2, which is a disappointment because the GameCube was online compatible a few days after Tony Hawk 4's release. Basically Tony Hawk 4 is just a lot more fun than the other Tony Hawk games. The goals that you do are creative and fun, and you will want to play a lot of them many times.

Story- 8/10
A game like this doesn't usually have a story but Tony Hawk 4 has what you could call ''mini-stories''. Each time you talk to someone you get an objective but they don't just tell you to do that. They say something like someone has stolen their car so you have to chase them. I know this is not much of a story but for this type of a game that is pretty good.

Control- 9/10
The control on Tony Hawk 4 is overall good and easy to use. Everything is the same as in Tony Hawk 3 for the GameCube except for the new tricks they have added. The control is overall easy to use and once you get used to it you will find yourself doing any trick you want as easy as ever. The only thing that is annoying is when you try to do tricks that require you to tap twice on the joystick. That can sometimes be difficult to do but you can usually do it. It is also hard to do lip tricks sometimes because since you use the same button for those and for grinds you have to go ABSOLUTELY STRAIGHT at a lip or you will end up doing a grind. Those are the only real problems with control but I have had another problems with the controller. If you are using a WaveBird Wireless Controller the ‘A’ Button is a little more sensitive that it is on the normal controller. So when you are holding down on the ‘A’ Button to get more speed, if you let even the smallest amount of pressure off the ‘A’ Button you will jump and that can really mess you up (I know this is not just a problem with my WaveBird because I have four of them and they all do this). It does not do this with a normal controller so if that bothers you too much you can just switch to that one.

Sound/Music- 8/10
The sound in Tony Hawk for is a lot better than it was in 3. There are more sounds depending on what you are riding across and everything sounds a lot more real. The best thing about the sound is the fact that every person has there own voice. Whenever you talk to anyone they will say something to you with a voice all their own. Each person sounds different and sometimes (like with the bums) there voices are very funny. Now the music is a different matter. Most of it is good but it is not as good as it was in Tony Hawk 3. I ended up turning off half of the songs (which is a nice feature). Overall the sound is great and this section would have got a 10 but the music brought it down a little.

Replay Value- 7/10
This is a lot like other Tony Hawk Games that you will probably want to play it a few times, but since the goals in this game are so fun you will probably want to play it many more times that you did in previous Tony Hawk games. And since each character has some separate goals that only that character has you will want to play with the different characters, you will also want to do this to unlock new character, movies, and other things. Since there are nine levels, 14 characters plus create a skater plus secret character with 190 goals each you will be busy for a long time.

Recap-
Graphics- 8/10
Gameplay- 9/10
Story- 8/10
Control- 9/10
Sound/Music- 8/10
Replay Value- 7/10
Final Score- 8/10

Buy, Rent, or Not Bother-
It really depends on how big a Tony Hawk fan you are. If you are a die hard Tony Hawk fan or have liked any of the previous games you should probably buy this, because this is the best Tony Hawk game so far and no matter what feature of Tony Hawk you like the best this game will have it all for you. If you are not sure, and don't know if you will like the way this game is set up then you should probably rent it first because they have made some major changes in the game so it might not fit your taste. If you have never liked any Tony Hawk games then you probably won't like this, because despite the changes they have made it is still a Tony Hawk game and if you don't like the other games you will probably not like this. But overall this is a great game and is the best in the series so far.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/10/02, Updated 08/30/03