Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD
When you can't make a good remake of your original great game, you know you messed up big time.
Genre(s): Sports Platform(s): Microsoft Windows PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Release: Xbox 360 WW: July 18, 2012 PlayStation 3 WW: August 28, 2012 Microsoft Windows WW: September 18, 2012 Engine: Unreal Engine 3 Developer(s): Robomodo Publisher(s): Activision Country: United States Series: Tony Hawk's Predecessor: Tony Hawk's Shred Successor: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD is a remake of the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, developed by Robomodo and published by Activision. It features high-definition graphics and recreations of levels from Pro Skater, Pro Skater 2, and (via DLC) Pro Skater 3. It was released on Xbox Live Arcade in July 2012, with PSN and Steam versions coming one and two months later, respectively.

Why It Sucks

1. There are features that are missing from the original games: Create-A-Skater, Create-A-Park, Classic Modes and Reverts (although the latter was added in a DLC).
2. The multiplayer is limited to only online play, there is no LAN mode.
3. The selection of skaters is lackluster having only 9 avaliable compared to the original games.
4. Worse graphics and low quality visuals, comparable to PS2 games (in fact, the Tony Hawk's games on PS2 looked better), despite running on Unreal Engine 3
   • The Venice Beach level looks by far the worst because of the yellow color pallete.
5. Very long loading times that takes as much as the infamous Sonic 06 loading, and somehow it takes longer than the original games.
6. False Advertising: Robomodo announced that this is the first time you could play a Tony Hawk game on PC, when in reality, Pro Skater 2 was the first to have a PC port released.
7. Lackluster and inferior soundtrack: there are only 14 songs and due to licensing issues, only one song from the original game and six from the sequel are present in this game (7 songs came back in total). The other seven songs are completely new and they are very inferior to the original games because they lack the energy it had.
8. Sluggish and stiff controls, although it can be partially excused because of the change in engine.
9. Wonky Physics (despite using the PhysX engine): The most disliked mechanic (Big Drop which was used in Pro Skater 2) from the entire franchise returns: if you land in an incline from a high enough height, you'll fall off your skateboard, regardless of the direction your wheels are facing.
   • Even worse, the height limit has been significally increased, making levels such as most of Pro Skater 3 DLC Levels and Downhill from Pro Skater 1 totally unplayable.
10. Large amounts of environmental clipping.
11. As mentioned above, the reverts can only be acquired by purchasing DLC containing levels from Pro Skater 3, and can only be done in said levels.
    • Even then, the revert no longer slows you down.
12. There are only seven levels in overall, with only three of them being from the original. The other four are from the sequel.
    • The additional levels in the Pro Skater 3 DLC aren't much better than the included ones and don't feel anything like the original version, not to mention some of the original objectives such as Bury the Bully from the Canada level are missing.
13. Bare-Bones PC Port: There is no video options menu, no way to rebind keyboard controls, the keyboard controls themselves suck, and while you can use an Xbox 360 controller, you can't navigate the menus with it. You must use the keyboard to do so, and when checking out how to do tricks, it'll show the controls for the keyboard, even if a gamepad is plugged in. There is also no form of multiplayer in this version, luckly it can be fixed with a mod.
14. This game is avaliable digitally only, meaning that there was never a physical release, even worse, after the Tony Hawk license expired in 2015 the game got delisted off digital stores, meaning that there is now no way to play this.

Redeeming Qualities

1. There is a mod called Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD: Launcher and Community Mod that fixes some of PC Problems: like adding V-Sync option, some graphical settings and even reverts in all levels.
2. This is the first Robomodo game that doesn't use the infamous skateboarder controller from the previous two games.
3. Atleast this sorry excuse of a remake is cheap, being only for only $15 ($10 on PC).
4. Big Head Mode is the only fun mode in this game.
5. While Create-A-Skater is not in this game, the Xbox 360 version allows you to use your Xbox 360 avatar as a custom skater, making it the best version of this game.
6. The 2020 remake by Vicarious Vision is an big improvement over this one.

Trivia

• It was the video game debut for Tony Hawk's son, Riley Hawk.
• This game is now abandonware and no longer avaliable for purchase as of 2015 because of the license expiring.

Reception

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD has received mixed reviews upon release. It currently holds aggregates scores of 67.61% at GameRankings and 66 out of 100 at Metacritic. Review scores range from a 40% approval ratio from Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar to a 90% approval from Alex Rubens of G4TV. The majority of scores at both GameRankings and Metacritic were at or above a 60% approval ratio.

IGN's Nic Vargas gave the game a score of 8/10, praising its purist gameplay whilst lamenting the lack of certain modes such as park creator and split screen multiplayer. The reviewer from GameTrailers gave the game a score of 7.4 and stated that Pro Skater HD "isn't flawless, but... it at least gets off on the right foot". Lucas Sullivan of GamesRadar felt that "old-school fans of the franchise will be disappointed by what the game lacks, and gamers who’ve never laid eyes on a PS1 will find the mechanics and level design sparse". Destructoid gave the game 4.5/10, stating that the execution isn't handled as well as the original titles, as well as some of the design choices the developer made. G4TV gave the game a 4.5/5 and praised the console versions' online multiplayer and soundtrack. Official Xbox Magazine gave Pro Skater HD an 8/10. They praised the game's new big head mode.

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