A nostalgia masterclass - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater returns
By Jordan Middler // 大象传媒 The Social contributor // 04 September 2020
It’s time to dust off your old baggy jeans, huge shoes and skinned elbows because Tony Hawk is back. After years of silence following the terrible and legacy tarnishing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, The Birdman is back with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, a loving remaster of two of the absolute best PSOne games.
But have Activision been able to recapture the magic? Well, put it this way, within about 30 minutes of playing the game, I was checking online to see how quickly I could get a skateboard delivered to my house.
The developers clearly have a great reverence for these games and it shines through in everything from the menus to the names of challenges and the games’ general attitude.
Remakes of these games have been attempted before by other teams but those felt like a cash grab which completely missed what made those original games incredible. The previous remakes also ruined the best in class mechanics, something this game recreates perfectly.
The game consists of levels and skaters from THPS 1+2 as the comically long name subtly suggests, but crucially, they’ve included elements from later titles giving you a much more rounded set of tricks to pull off. For example, the revert, something that was missing in the original version of both of these games expands the combo system and allows for stage spanning combos with relative ease.
Speaking of stages, all the classics that are burnt into your brain are back with a genuinely visually impressive coat of paint. The Hanger, School and Streets are all here. Collecting S-K-A-T-E is here. The Secret Tapes are here. It’s all here.
The fantastic soundtracks from the originals are also here. The introduced me to so much music it’s ridiculous. Bad Religion, Rage Against The Machine, Billy Talent - all bands that would populate the iPod touch of 14 year old me after discovering them through the original games. Almost all of the songs from the original soundtracks returns and a few modern tracks have also been included.
Similarly, the games playable skaters are made up from a mix of the originals from the first two games as well as some of the stars of modern skateboarding. So you can play as both Tony Hawk and his son Riley Hawk. Imagine saying your Dad was Tony Hawk?
If you have even the slightest reverence for these games then this is an essential collection. The team who put this together couldn’t have done more to make it feel exactly how Tony Hawk fans wanted it to.
They’ve even modernised it in interesting ways with new game-spanning challenges and customisation feature. I’m thrilled with how it’s turned out and my only hope now is that they move on to later games in the series - Tony Hawk’s Underground anyone?
