Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x

"Wow. This is just amazing."

This has to have been one of the coolest skateboarding games when it came out, and it is still pretty high up there on my list because of the sheer size and time you will waste on it, especially if you have never played THPS2. Even if you have, it's still a fun revisit.

Graphics: 9/10
All I can say is wow. At some points, this looks even better than THPS3 for the Xbox, mainly because this was made to be Xbox only, so they could optimize things for the Xbox. All of the skaters look incredibly detailed, and there's virtually no slowdown in the game at all. There's nothing missing and there's obviously a lot of attention to detail in the levels, with all the graffiti and other various things. The only drawback is that sometimes the levels can look ever so slightly drab, especially some of the original THPS levels.

Sound 8/10
This game has a nice soundtrack, with a lot of music that is perfect for skateboarding. The sound of the skaters falling off of their skateboards are nice, with the sound of slams against the wall and things like that, although the grunts can get a bit repetitive. The only sound that even remotely gets to me is the grinding one, which sounds like a 2 second loop of someone scraping their nails on a chalkboard.

Gameplay 10/10
As always, with all the games in the THPS series, the strong point here is gameplay. When you play this for the first time, you can't put it down. When you play this for the 10th time, it's still quite hard to put down. There's just so much to do in this game it isn't even funny. Replaying THPS2 was fun for me, and then you have the levels which were made soley for this version of the game, which are a nice addition. This is one of those few gems of a game that never gets boring. It's very easy to play, too, but very hard to master

Controls 6/10
This is one of the only weak points, and it really isn't that big of a concern if you managed to get one of the Controller-S Xbox controllers. When you play with the original controller, it just feels like it's too big to play properly with, and you can sometimes miss buttons. The control scheme is nice though, and if you have a Controller-S, this rating goes up to 9/10.

Replay 10/10
Once again, as I had said above, this game is nearly impossible to get bored of, and hard to put down the first couple of times you play it. The fact that there is multiplayer expands the fun even more, and you can even talk about highscores online with other people, and have mini tournaments and the like.

Multiplayer 10/10
There are so many game modes in multiplayer, and, even though the game is fun with one person, it gets even more fun when you get your friends involved. There are a crapload of game modes, such as Trick Attack and Graffiti, and they are all fun. My personal favorite has to be Horse, which is basically ''I can do anything better than you'' revisited. Someone does a trick, and the other person has to do a trick better than that, or else they will get a letter in a word. If they get all the letters in that word, the game tells them that they are that word. Set that word to a nice mean word and you have a heated battle.

Rent/Buy: Buy
If this is the only game you buy this year, it wouldn't be a foolish investment. This has more replay value than many games on the Xbox, and the first time through the game is just so much fun. The fact that you can unlock cheats as you play through just up's the ante even more, and if you have some friends to play it with, you will never get bored.

Overall 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/03, Updated 04/04/03