Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

"Not the greatest thing ever..."

I'm sure I'll get a lot of crap for this review, but it's just how I feel...

I loved Tony Hawk 1-3. They all were amazing and none were inferior or superior to the others. And then this one came along... and it's really not as great as everyone says. It's been called innovative, amazing, exciting, incredible, fantastic, terrific, and the next step in the series, but I think it ruined it. Bad.
It takes the no time limit feature from Agressive Inline, which is a good thing. Inline rocked hard, but Tony Hawk 4 does a terrible job of utilizing this. Everything is timed, making things a lot harder and too challenging. A challenge is great, but this is near impossible to beat... High scores in the millions. Come on now! Anyways, onto the review.

Graphics - 8/10
The graphics are nice to look at. Lots of stuff on screen at once, decent textures and models... but very plain. Overall, nothing bad. The levels are also gigantic, easy to get lost in. Slowdown is rare, and nothing to complain about.

Sound - 9/10
The sound effects are as great as always, this time with some corny voice acting to introduce each goal. Very nice.

Music - 3/10
The music in Tony Hawk games have been at a constant decline. It started out with real skating music: punk and ska. Then, as the series went on, we got more rock and it led into rap... the bad kind of million dollar lifestyle rap that is ruining society. This soundtrack is awful, with the exceptions of tracks by Goldfinger, Less Than Jake, and Flogging Molly.

Control/Gameplay - 8/10
The control is the same as always, really good and responsive. Nothing to complain about, except it gets ridiculously fast as you increase your stats, making gameplay near impossible. But you can still skate and have a good time like always... but like I said, this new no time limit stuff is awful and makes this the worst game in the series.

Overall
The Tony Hawk series is ruined by this change.. the game is still fun, but way way too hard and annoying to enjoy. I find the game to be a task when I play.
RENT OR BUY Either one. Buy if you want to finish it, but it's more of a throw around for a while and play it... all depends.

You may be disappointed, you may not. I think I'm the only one in the world who didn't like this game.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/16/03, Updated 03/16/03