Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

"The game that started it all is not so great"

Tony Hawk Pro Skater is the first skateboarding game made by Activision. This game is the one that made extreme sport games popular and fun to play. Although now Tony Hawk games are very vibrant and more fantasy than simulation. This game featured awesome levels, a killer soundtrack, and many cool skateboarders to ride. There are many moves you can do and your character gets better as you go. As you progress through the game your character is given attributes points which help him rise up to the challenge as the game gets harder. Other things, such as board handling, grip tape, and wheel color can be changed to your liking. One other cool thing is that each rider has there own set of skateboards that can be unlocked. The main game it's self is pretty standard. It has you completing goals and competing in tournaments to win medals.

Gameplay:9/10 The C buttons are used to preform different things such as grinding, ollies, flip tricks, and grabs. They work well with the N64 controller and it's possible to do a lot of high point combos. The board it self controls realistically and your able to do many real pro moves. The only problem i had was controlling the joystick at times.

Graphics:7/10 The graphics are okay for an N64 title but this game is sorta a port of a Playstation game so they are acceptable. The characters themselves look okay and environments are large and detail. Animation of the skateboarder and the skateboard are very impressive when doing the long list of moves that are available.

Sound:5/10 The music in the game features many great songs but their quality is very low so it's like looking at a flower covered in poop, you know that flower is beautiful but the state that it's in makes it stink.The other bad thing is that the game doesn't even has full songs and instead a one minute loop of the same part over and over again. All of the board noises are the same way with low quality sounds. Today THPS games feature some of the best soundtracks that games ever had, it's sort of strange that this is what the soundtrack evolved from.

Play Time/ Replayability:7/10 This game features a lot of tasks to beat and beating all of them with every character will take quite awhile. There is also some fun two player games such as horse and high score which has some life to this title. The only thing wrong is that everyones career is the same so it will begin to feel repetitive after awhile since your beating the same game over and over again with a different character. The goals are basically the same every level so the game so there's really no variety.

Final Recommendation: Since like many other old games, this game is very cheap used so you should just go out and buy it. There is a good amount of fun to be had with this title and show where the THPS series originated from. You can pick this game up for less than 5 dollars used so go for it. There are many better Tony Hawk games out already that are a lot bigger and better in size, but if you want to see where the series originated then this is a must have.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/29/04