Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD Review

A subpar and awkward attempt to relaunch a classic franchise

Posted by Christian Sorrell on August 9, 2012 - 9:20pm EST

Music was always a vital component of the Tony Hawk franchise. I discovered many bands that continue to be some of my favorites to this day from the soundtracks of the series’ first three entries. In this department, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD can be somewhat commended. A number of songs from the original two games are in the game included Goldfinger’s “Superman,” a song that many consider to basically be the series’ theme song. Beyond that, new music by a number of up-and-coming bands has also been included and they fit well with the atmosphere of the game overall. Sadly, the total song count is so low and the game lacks any sort of music options (allowing you to turn on or off certain songs) that you’ll find yourself just turning the music off altogether during a longer play session simply because you will hear the same song over and over again so many times.

Multiplayer was never a series mainstay for me when it came to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, but it is present here and even includes a few new additions. Graffiti in which players trick on certain parts of the level to paint them a certain color and Trick Attack where players aim for the highest score in two minutes both make a return alongside the newcomer Big Head mode in which your head inflates over time and you must keep doing tricks to deflate it. The bigger the tricks, the more your head shrinks. Wait too long, it pops and you lose. While interesting, they are all essentially the same mode: do as many tricks as possible as quickly as possible within the time limit. The lack of local multiplayer here is a big mistake, as HD remakes such as this that play on nostalgia, should work to recreate most of the components of the original. My fond memories of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater multiplayer come from skating alongside a friend on my couch, not in a dark room over the internet. The multiplayer works well enough but is still plagued by the games many other unfortunate bugs.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD is an extremely disappointing product. While it looks better than the originals in many ways, the added problems caused by the Unreal Engine as well as the incredibly error-riddled physics engine make for a much more problematic gameplay experience. The controls, an absolute staple of the Tony Hawk franchise, are easily the most imprecise I have encountered in an HD remake. The game’s lack of trick features from the series’ strongest entry, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3, mean that the combo system is still far from perfect. I found little, if any reason, to ever use grab tricks without the option to revert. Additionally, the lack of local multiplayer isn’t all that surprising in the modern game space but taking into consideration that this is a package looking to play mostly off nostalgia, it should be included.

If you are looking to get your Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater fix, find a copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 for original Xbox (the Xbox 360 will run it). It is a far better game, contains all the original music, and still controls perfectly.