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Review - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD
14:32, 23rd Jul 2012
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I'll admit it, I couldn't help but laugh. In the days immediately following the appearance of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD on Xbox Live Arcade, when all the big outlets were getting their reviews up online, one massive trend became incredibly obvious: everyone had forgotten how to play Tony Hawk. It's not that there weren't grains of truth in the complaints everyone was making, but more that they were trying to play a completely different game to what was actually in front of them, which meant they spent more time on their arses then they did on their boards.
In fairness, it's an easy mistake for long-time fans of the Tony Hawk series to make. By the time Project 8 came along, players had been given with all manner of moves and other things to make insane scoring runs possible: the removal of the two-minute timer that had been a staple of Tony Hawk games until TH: Underground came along, the addition of reverts and spine transfers for keeping skate lines alive and much, much more. But just as the fans had been spoilt with such abilities, so had the franchise - Neversoft had turned it from an exciting and challenging videogame take on skateboarding into something that gave the hardcore fans everything they wanted, but at the expense of accessibility and everyone else's fun. You know, exactly the same thing they did with Guitar Hero when they got their hands on that.
The thing about Tony Hawk HD, however, is that it's not the Tony Hawk you remember. At least, it's not the one you remember if you stuck with the series until the bitter end, since it seems to be based on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2X (a little-known game combining levels from the first two games that only came out in the US) and so shuns almost all of the advancements made later in the series. It's a grass roots take on the age-old franchise that attempts to recapture the essence of what made it fun in the first place and, for the most part, it succeeds greatly. As such, coming at it with extensive experience of the later Tony Hawk games actually makes it really hard to play – you're trying to do certain moves where they don't exist, taking advantage of clever techniques where there are none. No wonder that all the veteran reviewers threw their toys out of the pram then.
That's not to say that going back to basics is entirely brilliant for Tony Hawk HD though. For instance, the old-school approach makes it difficult to hide just how clunky the original games actually were; while the scoring mechanics were always solid from the start, a lack of refinement that comes with repeated iterations meant the steering controls felt a little twitchy and you could find yourself bailing for reasons that were never exactly clear. That developer Robomodo has kept those quirks in is slightly strange, as you'd think such things would be high on the list of things to smooth out, but it looks as though the improvements stopped at a purely graphical level rather than also making vital tweaks to the core engine. It also doesn't help that the Xbox 360 pad, with its rubbish D-pad, doesn't make hitting those high scores any easier, especially since the original games were designed without analogue sticks in mind.
Still, Robomodo's still done a pretty great job with the task it's been given: namely, bringing an old game up to modern standards. Far from being the lazy HD upgrade that people seem to be suggesting it is, Tony Hawk HD is actually rather good in that department with some decent enough visuals and nice remodelling of classic stages. That there are only seven of them is a bit of a letdown, though you can already see the dollar signs in Activision's eyes thanks to its plans to release more as downloadable content, and one (Downhill Jam) seems a strange inclusion since it was always the weakest element of the original game. But the rest are still as tight and well-designed as they ever used to be, with some great skate lines to follow and a wide set of challenges to attempt. There's even a new map function showing where everything is, a concession for new players wondering where the hell those last few cash icons are… although it's a shame deciphering it takes more time than it probably should.
The problem here then, it would seem, was expectation. When Activision announced that it was rebooting Tony Hawk with an HD update and then didn't reveal much more, it left fans to simply concoct their own visions of what the game would be like: an amalgam of all their favourite bits rather than the simple update to an early example of the series. The thing is, bringing in elements like the new moves would only serve to unbalance the levels rather than improve them, but people aren't willing to think like that – they'd rather deride Robomodo's work as shoddy and then go back to moaning about how they never get the games they want. If they only gave Tony Hawk HD a chance, they'd see what a great little game it actually is; it's a little retro, maybe, and needs to be approached as such, but it's still as good as it ever was.
In fairness, it's an easy mistake for long-time fans of the Tony Hawk series to make. By the time Project 8 came along, players had been given with all manner of moves and other things to make insane scoring runs possible: the removal of the two-minute timer that had been a staple of Tony Hawk games until TH: Underground came along, the addition of reverts and spine transfers for keeping skate lines alive and much, much more. But just as the fans had been spoilt with such abilities, so had the franchise - Neversoft had turned it from an exciting and challenging videogame take on skateboarding into something that gave the hardcore fans everything they wanted, but at the expense of accessibility and everyone else's fun. You know, exactly the same thing they did with Guitar Hero when they got their hands on that.
The thing about Tony Hawk HD, however, is that it's not the Tony Hawk you remember. At least, it's not the one you remember if you stuck with the series until the bitter end, since it seems to be based on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2X (a little-known game combining levels from the first two games that only came out in the US) and so shuns almost all of the advancements made later in the series. It's a grass roots take on the age-old franchise that attempts to recapture the essence of what made it fun in the first place and, for the most part, it succeeds greatly. As such, coming at it with extensive experience of the later Tony Hawk games actually makes it really hard to play – you're trying to do certain moves where they don't exist, taking advantage of clever techniques where there are none. No wonder that all the veteran reviewers threw their toys out of the pram then.
That's not to say that going back to basics is entirely brilliant for Tony Hawk HD though. For instance, the old-school approach makes it difficult to hide just how clunky the original games actually were; while the scoring mechanics were always solid from the start, a lack of refinement that comes with repeated iterations meant the steering controls felt a little twitchy and you could find yourself bailing for reasons that were never exactly clear. That developer Robomodo has kept those quirks in is slightly strange, as you'd think such things would be high on the list of things to smooth out, but it looks as though the improvements stopped at a purely graphical level rather than also making vital tweaks to the core engine. It also doesn't help that the Xbox 360 pad, with its rubbish D-pad, doesn't make hitting those high scores any easier, especially since the original games were designed without analogue sticks in mind.
Still, Robomodo's still done a pretty great job with the task it's been given: namely, bringing an old game up to modern standards. Far from being the lazy HD upgrade that people seem to be suggesting it is, Tony Hawk HD is actually rather good in that department with some decent enough visuals and nice remodelling of classic stages. That there are only seven of them is a bit of a letdown, though you can already see the dollar signs in Activision's eyes thanks to its plans to release more as downloadable content, and one (Downhill Jam) seems a strange inclusion since it was always the weakest element of the original game. But the rest are still as tight and well-designed as they ever used to be, with some great skate lines to follow and a wide set of challenges to attempt. There's even a new map function showing where everything is, a concession for new players wondering where the hell those last few cash icons are… although it's a shame deciphering it takes more time than it probably should.
The problem here then, it would seem, was expectation. When Activision announced that it was rebooting Tony Hawk with an HD update and then didn't reveal much more, it left fans to simply concoct their own visions of what the game would be like: an amalgam of all their favourite bits rather than the simple update to an early example of the series. The thing is, bringing in elements like the new moves would only serve to unbalance the levels rather than improve them, but people aren't willing to think like that – they'd rather deride Robomodo's work as shoddy and then go back to moaning about how they never get the games they want. If they only gave Tony Hawk HD a chance, they'd see what a great little game it actually is; it's a little retro, maybe, and needs to be approached as such, but it's still as good as it ever was.
VERDICT
Come at it with an old-school mindset, prepared for some tough challenges and with tolerance for the physics quirks that still haven't been ironed out since the old days, and you'll have a blast. Expect something more and… well, you might as well go back to playing Project 8 and continue wondering what might have been.
8/10
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