Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

"Hey ho! Let's go!"

I loved the first two Tony Hawk games, so you can bet that as soon as I bought my Playstation 2 I had to get the third installment of the series, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. I got it as a Christmas present, and I have been playing it nonstop ever since! Although I played the first two games to death, I am liking THPS3 even more. It's simply brilliant.

Just about everything you would expect from a Tony Hawk game is present in THPS3. There are hundreds of tricks/grinds, a good number of specials to use, and a seemingly endless amount of combinations are possible. Tony Hawk 2 introduced the ''manual'', which allowed you to link grinds. In THPS3, the manual remains, but there is also a new ''revert'' option which will link vertical tricks together. With so many ways to link tricks, it isn't incredibly difficult to get 100,000+ points on one combo. Trying to put together massive trick combos is a blast, which is good because you'll be doing that a lot in the game.

Veteran Tony Hawk players will feel right at home with THPS3. Rookies, however, will likely struggle. Thankfully, for them, there is a new tutorial mode where Mr. Hawk himself goes over the game's basics with you. It's a great way for the ''n00bs'' to learn the hang of things before diving headfirst into what THPS3 has to offer.

And boy, does Tony Hawk 3 have a lot to offer! You will spend most of your time playing in the game's heavily addictive and challenging career mode. THPS3's career mode is more reminiscent of the first game's rather than the second's. No longer do you need to find cash to upgrade your skater, for there is no more money. Instead, you upgrade your skater by finding hidden stat points and decks throughout each level. You can also get new special tricks by beating every goal in a level. I prefer this way of upgrading your skater more than the cash system. Very nice move by Neversoft.

Just like the past two games, there are both competition and non-competition levels in the career mode. There are six non-competition, and three competition levels. In the competitions, you are given one minute to skate your heart out and get as many points as you can. When your minute's up, the judges will rate you. You are given two more one-minute runs, before you final score is tallied. Get in the top three and you win a medal. Winning medals is necessary because they unlock new levels. I'll admit that I wasn't a big fan of the competition levels this time. While they are noticeably more difficult than previous games, they just weren't the most fun to skate in.

The non-competition levels, on the other hand, are great. There are nine goals for each of the levels. The usual goals are present - collect ''S-K-A-T-E'', get high scores, etc., but there are some fun new ones. There's always a wacky off-the-wall goal or two for each place. For example, in the Canada level, you have to help a guy named Chuck get his tongue unstuck from a telephone pole. In the Los Angeles area, you have to stop a car chase. These new goals are a lot of fun, and are a nice change of pace from the others. They are a big reason why the career mode is so excellent.

There are nine different levels in the game (not including the ''hidden'' ones), and most of them are pretty good. Two in particular stand out; the airport and cruise ship areas. Both are incredibly well-designed and are easily among the series' best. Unfortunately, there are also two levels that are subpar compared to the others. One, ''Suburbia'', is lame. The idea is nice (it's a suburb neighborhood), but it's poorly designed. The other weak level, ''Tokyo'' is too dull to be any good. It's a very tiny skate park with lots of flashy lights. To be frank, it's not that great. The rest of the unmentioned areas are solid, although none are particularly memorable.

One thing that I really liked about Tony Hawk 2 was its create-a-park mode. The good news is that it's back in THPS3. The bad news is that it's not much different than before. I was hoping for more environments (or ''themes'', i.e. indoor, outdoor, etc.) and a bigger area to work with, but I got neither. There are only three themes to choose from, and you are only given a small square grid to build on. There are only a handful of Neversoft-made parks added in as well, which is a disappointment considering they had well over 20 in THPS2.

The create-a-skater option isn't that great, either. While it is still possible to make a cool-looking skater (you should check out the one I made), you aren't given very many options to choose from. It's decent, but it's not as good as it could be.

One thing that has always been fantastic in the Tony Hawk series is its multiplayer mode. Tony Hawk 3 expands on the multiplayer aspect by being online-compatible. That's right, if you have a network adapter ($40), you can play THPS3 online. Online play is a blast. There is very little lag to speak of and there are always dozens of rooms open to play in. All of the regular multiplayer modes can be played online with up to four people playing at once. If you have a network adapter, it is well worth it to check out THPS3 online. It's fun.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is a vast improvement in terms of visuals over its predecessors. No longer are there blocky characters or funny-looking environments. Everything looks good now, with very impressive lighting effects and fantastic textures. Animations are as smooth and fluid as ever. Pulling off a 720 nosegrab has never looked this good! The graphics are very well done. A definite improvement here.

The Tony Hawk series has always had some great songs to skate to. While I doubt anything will ever top the first game's great tunes, THPS3 does come close. There is a big selection of music to listen to, and you have the option to turn certain tracks off if you don't like them. The cream of the crop this time is the Ramones' ''Blitzkrieg Bop'', Motorhead's ''Ace of Spades'', and ''96 Quite Bitter Beings'' by CKY. There are only a few songs that I didn't really like, mainly the terrible rap songs by Redman and Xzibit. The game's sound effects are as good as ever, as now you will hear specatator's ask ''what you got'' or make a witty remark about what you're doing. Neversoft did a great job with the audio department.

All in all, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is excellent. It's easily my new favorite game from the series. Although it does have a few shortcomings (the ''create-a'' modes and somewhat disappointing competition levels, in particular), they don't detract much from the game experience at all. With the new online mode and the incredibly addictive career mode, you'll be playing this baby for a while. I know I will, at least until I get my hands on Tony Hawk 4. For the $20 Tony Hawk 3 sells for now, you would be ill-advised to miss such a great game.

9

Best Feature - Career and online modes.
Worst Feature - Create-a-skater and create-a-park modes.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/03, Updated 01/03/03