Thrasher Presents: Skate and Destroy

"My little piggy needed something new"

When the original Tony Hawk game came out in 1999, a wave of wannabe titles followed directly behind it. Tony was successful; skateboarding sells. Among the 3Xtremes and Street Sk8ers, however, there was Thrasher: Skate and Destroy. Thrasher took the concept of skateboarding and used it to create a more realistic skateboarding game than any of the titles mentioned so far. Rather than focusing on easy to link combos, Thrasher focused on tricks and levels, and managed to succeed in both areas.

Hey pig

The first thing you'll notice when you pick up Thrasher is that it's tough to control. You can eventually grow used to the controls, but on the first couple levels you'll have a hard time doing even simple things like clearing gaps or producing small two-trick combos (such as a flip in to a grind, or a flip out of a grind). If you're familiar with Tony Hawk games, you'll have a small idea on how it works - the face buttons (circle, square, etc) produce the tricks. Thrasher, however, mixes up the commands - and awkwardly enough gives you a button to push yourself on your skateboard rather than having the game do it automatically for you. It adds to the realism of the game, and it becomes second nature after a while, but the only thing it actually adds to the game is a better feel for skateboarding, which means if you came for some good gameplay, you're second on Thrasher's list.

All of my fears came true

The second thing you'll notice is the rap music. This isn't Eminem or 50 Cent you're listening to - I'm no expert, but it sounds like underground rap. Basically, that means difficult to understand lyrics spoken to darkly generic beats. If you don't dig rap, this will be a nightmare come true (or possibly even if you do dig rap, like myself). Some songs are acceptable well enough (Rapper's Delight) while others make you want to puke (whichever song repeats the word ‘baby' at least 20 times, with extra emphasis on the word). It's tough to stomach if you're one of those ‘can't spell rap without crap' people. The soundtrack definitely needs some more balance - punk or rock music would have been great additions.

Finally, you'll notice that the game is basically one single session round from a Tony Hawk game after another, with competition levels thrown in few and far in between. The point of the single player mode is to rack up enough points, and then exit the level before the cops shoot you (hey, this is a Rockstar game…). Near the beginning the points are embarrassingly low - 5000 to complete a level, for example. However, that isn't so much an issue as first-timers will likely struggle to simple land tricks on their first go - so the difficulty remains balanced enough. But the fact that each level only has one goal makes the game extremely simple and repetitive - even annoying in some parts thanks to the extremely harsh (or ‘realistic', to put it in a nicer way) collision detecting. Land any more than slightly turned when you finish a trick and you'll hit the dirt - while in other games like Tony Hawk, when you lands somewhat turned you'll get a ‘sketchy' notice and some points loss, this game doesn't allow you to do anything that couldn't be done by a real life skateboarder.

Black and blue and broken bones
You left me here I'm all alone

The crashes into the ground, I admit, are a joy to look at. You occasionally enter a sort of slo-mo mode as you fall, and hit the dirt like you just belly dived off a building. Obviously this isn't a big deal, but add that with the comical looks of the skater and you at least get some comic value to coexist with the realism. There is also another thing that helps take realism away from the game, which you may now think is great. Unfortunately, the unrealistic bit is the fact that you're skating a wasteland. Not a single person in sight. Deserted. While it makes it less crowded, I'd think Venice Beach would, you know, have some people hanging around? It's kind of ridiculous when you actually stop and realize that the levels are completely deserted of life, spare yourself and some annoying vehicles.

My little piggy needed something new

You want to enjoy the skateboarding, but the game is so harsh on you that you feel extremely restricted with what you do. Where in another skateboarding game you could simply ride up to a rail and slide across it without problem, Thrasher makes you balance along the rail like you were on a unicycle for your first time, every time, and often slows you down so that you don't even get to the end of the rail and you have to pop off (often resulting in a slightly turned board landing, causing you to fall). The realism is there, but it isn't any fun. The game forgets it's a game while taking the subject matter way too seriously. Add in the fact that the game brings basically nothing new to the table, and you've got little reason to pick it over other skateboarding games. In the end, if you're looking for a good skateboarding game, you can do better. If you want a realistic skateboarding game, this is probably the best you can do, but afterwards you'll likely be confused as to why you wanted a realistic skateboarding game in the first place. If you just want a skating game and are through with every Tony Hawk game on the market, then Thrasher is a fair purchase if found at an extremely cheap price.

+ A nice catalog of tricks
+ Skateboarding around can be fun
+ Realistic…
- … though that's just a nice way of saying it's unforgiving
- Extremely limited soundtrack genre

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/09/05