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Tony Hawk launches on the PSP!
Publisher: Activision
Sat, 8 October 2005
by: Special K
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Ok. Before we go any further with this review, I'll fill you in on my history with the Tony Hawk series. I am familiar with Tony Hawk and Tony Hawk 2 on the Nintendo 64 and have memories of playing the game on PC a few times – and that's all. If you are after a review from someone who can pull-off 1,000,000 point + combos, please refer to Mugwai's review of THUG2 on the Xbox.
I know Sammy has already spoken about the PSP hardware but there are a few things having now used it for a couple of weeks or so. The LCD display is almost faultless. In saying this it does suffer some ghosting from time to time but overall, it looks fantastic. My biggest beef with the hardware is the AC adapter which tends to get in the way while you are playing. These are really minor issues with what is a fantastic piece of gaming hardware.
Exploring the modes in this game I found that the Story Mode was the most compelling. The idea of having a story with goals to achieve seemed far better than the time limited, score based gameplay of the older Tony Hawk titles. I will confess that I am a button-masher by trade and not overly fond of learning all the key combinations that go along with the game.
 | | Timmay! |
You are introduced into the game with Tony and Bam Margera and their teams competing in the Underground Tournament. You are mugged by the guys as you are calmly skating a ramp in your favourite alleyway and dragged away by masked men. While there is an attempt to make it a story-driven game, there is no hiding the fact that this is still driven by scoring points by completing goals. At this stage, I'm not totally sure whether the scores have any bearing on the outcome of the story but I'd expect not. Anyway, you are then divided into two teams. You end up on Tony Hawk's team picked last after Paul "Wheels of Fury" Ryan (or Timmay!! from South Park in a body cast and orthodontic braces). It felt somehow appropriate that I was selected last.
To begin the game, you can take some training before you head out. This turned out to be a godsend as it gave me time to work out the trick combos and get at least some of the moves worked out. It is also the same skate park used at the start of the first of the Tony Hawk games. Anyway to cut a long story short, I went through training and onto the first mission..
One thing I liked immediately was being able to get off the skateboard and look around on foot. It used to shit me to tears with the old games where you were glued to the board and you could never really get a good feel for the level – hey I'm just an unco button masher and I like having time to stop and smell the roses. After all, the levels are superbly detailed and it seems a shame to have it all rush by in a blur.
Speaking of blurring, I did notice that while playing the game, there was some blurring on the screen. This is most likely due to the fact that all LCD panels have some degree of lag in changing from white to black. Another reason could be the smooth and high framerate of the game. The motion is fluid and the detail of the levels is fantastic and for that reason I am willing to overlook some of the graphics blurring.
 | | That skater boy looks familiar... |
Another aspect of the game that gets the big thumbs up from me was the various Create-A modes. One of the first things I did was customised my own skater and mapped my face from a photo on my digital camera! It is surprisingly easy and they have a great feature that allows you to specify where your eyes, nose and mouth are on the photo so that your face is mapped more accurately to the 3D head. A small feature but when you can put your own face on the game character (Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Perfect Dark supposed to have that feature way back when?), make them tall with big feet you do feel like you have had extra impact on the game.
I'll acknowledge the fact that there are two other create-a modes in the game, but because of my general crapness I didn't feel like creating a goal or a trick. Hell I can't complete most of the simple ones they throw at you in the first three levels - which reminds me of a funny moment. One of the first Goals to complete was simply titled "Impress the Local Skater". Needless to say, I couldn't, as I would continually leave the area I was supposed to be in or simply be to crap to complete the tricks in sequence! Amazingly I did manage to score enough to move on to the next level.
Throughout the game you are presented with various guest or mystery skaters. One of which is Steve-O riding a mechanical bull in Barcelona and Jesse James in Boston on one of those two-wheeled upright scooters.
The create-a-graphic feature is quite good too but I don't think it allows you to map your own graphics onto your shirt or board. But don't lose heart, there are plenty of pre-defined backgrounds, images and a feature that allows you to put your own text on images. As a result you can write custom graffiti and slap your own sticker on walls throughout the levels.
The music gets a special mention for the inclusion of Faith No More's Midlife Crisis, Johny Cash with "Ring of Fire", Metallica's "Whiplash". Fazz will appreciate the inclusion of Jimmy Eat World's, Pain and for some reason we have Old Blue Eyes singing "That's Life". It's definitely a varied soundtrack and at times I found the songs quite apt for my piss-poor skating ability.
Unfortunately I was unable to try out the wireless multi-player games as you cannot "Game Share" with this particular title. Game sharing has been much of a disappointment for me so far. Most of the release titles do not accommodate it and each player is required to have their own copy of the game to join a multi-player game. C'mon guys! You make so much money out of the poor gaming consumer that surely you could be good enough to let us all play from the one UMD. Let's hope they relax their collectively tight sphincters and release more titles that support game sharing!
All up I'm finding that returning to Tony Hawk's game after a fair absence has been an enjoyable experience. The port to the PSP is pretty well flawless and the minor blurring on the high-speed sequences is not really noticeable. I'm going to have to say that the story mode is what has re-kindled my interest in the game giving you far more freedom to explore the levels rather than bashing your way into walls on your way round the levels. It's easy to see that there aren't really too many radical changes that have been made to the game, just subtle refinements to make this a worthy purchase. Everyone should have Tony Hawk in their pocket!
by: Special K
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I'm not usually a fan of remixes, but I'll make an exception for this one! | |
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