Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

November 04, 2002

Platform: Nintendo Gamecube
Developer: Neversoft
Publisher: Activision
Reviewed by: Slusy

Gameplay: [10] Graphics: [8] Audio: [9] Replay: [9] Overall: [9.6]

Few series have been as much of a force on the gaming scene in recent years as the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series has been. Since its inception in 1999, Tony Hawk has not only become synonymous with video skateboarding, but has essentially become an ambassador to video games for the “outside world”, as it were. Now, on the fourth installment of the series, after three increasingly more impressive outings, the series could go in one of two directions. Either it could go the way of EA’s sports games, which is to say that the designers would essentially put out the same game with some minor modifications each year, or the series would reinvent itself. I’m happy to say that Activision has chosen the latter course, and, as a result, Tony Hawk 4 is easily the best game, by far, in the series.

The basic idea of the Tony Hawk games is that one takes on the persona of one of an array of pro skaters, and then accomplishes a series of skating-related goals in a series of locales. In previous games, there was a two-minute time limit in which you had to accomplish as many goals as you could within that timeframe. What’s new in Tony Hawk 4 is that the time limit is now completely gone, and you initiate goals by talking to different people (who are marked with rotating arrows over their heads) who give you a single objective to accomplish, which may or may not have a time limit. Accomplishing set numbers of goals unlock more stages, and there are 190 goals in all.

While it seems like a minor change to eliminate the run time limit, this one adjustment opens the game to a host of new possibilities, making Tony Hawk 4 the most varied game in the series. While several of the series’ standard goals return, such as achieving a high score and collecting the letters S-K-A-T-E, many of the game’s goals are brand new and likely would not have been possible with the two-minute restriction of earlier games. New goals include hitting tricks as a crowd calls them out, racing to a series of points in the stage (usually with an extremely strict time limit), street luge runs, and beating a set score on a series of combos. These new goals are generally much more satisfying than the old “find the secret tape” or “do this trick over this obstacle”. In addition, there are mini-games (played strictly for cash, which can be used to buy levels, decks, clothes, cheats and other miscellaneous locked items) that you can play, including a home run contest against a ghost pitcher, and a game of tennis (using your board as a racket, of course) against the sassiest Frenchman since Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Competition levels, where you did three one-minute runs and attempted to place in the top three compared to other skaters, are now a thing of the past as well. Competitions are now individual goals as part of the other stages, and there are different types of competitions as well, adding to the variety.

Each game in the series also offered a new type of trick that you can perform, and Tony Hawk 4 follows in that tradition. In fact, Tony Hawk 4 offers two new trick types and one greatly enhanced set of tricks. The first new trick is the Spine Transfer, performed by pressing both shoulder buttons simultaneously. This allows you to go up one ramp and come down on a facing ramp (rather than landing on the same ramp), or to land on a facing ledge if there is no adjoining ramp. I found this trick to be extremely useful, as one of my greatest frustrations in earlier Tony Hawk games was trying to launch from a ramp onto a ledge. One other thing you can use it for is to right yourself when you find yourself sailing off a ramp, headfirst toward the ground. Overall, the spine transfer adds quite a bit to the game, but it’s one of those tricks that you can either use or not use according to your playing style.

The other two new additions are a bit less significant but still noteworthy. You can now “skitch” behind cars by pressing up, grabbing onto their rear bumper and riding along with the car, which you can use to build up speed or simply get to another part of the stage quickly. Flatland tricks are also reintroduced in Tony Hawk 4. While they made their first appearance in Tony Hawk 3, they are formally introduced through goals in this installment. Flatland tricks are tricks performed while manualing, including handstands, jumping up and down on the end of the board, etc. Much like the manual itself, they are mainly used to increase the number of tricks in a line. Aside from a few specific goals in one of the stages, they’re another group of tricks that you can essentially use or not use without affecting your ability to complete the game.

As far as the actual gameplay is concerned, the change to the freeform format allows for much larger levels with even more things to skate off of. Simply being able to skate around for a while to get a feel for the level before attempting a goal. About the only downside to the larger levels is that the collecting goals are that much harder, simply because there are so many more places for the items to hide. S-K-A-T-E goals, barely registering on the radar screen in earlier games, now have become the bane of my existence, simply because it’s hard enough to find the letters, let alone figure out how to get up to them. One nice thing that the designers did take into consideration is that you can jump to any goal you’ve attempted from the pause menu, as well as restart the last goal you tried. As such, you don’t need to skate all over the level to find an obscure goal, nor do you need to waste time skating back to the beginning of a goal to restart it.

One other new addition afforded by the removal of the time limits is the set of pro challenges that is unlocked after one completes 90 goals in the main game. These are more difficult than the regular goals, and specifically tailored to each skater. For example, you might do tricks across a gap in a full-pipe as Bob Burnquist or go California Bobsledding (read: racing in a shopping cart) as Bam Margera of Jackass fame. These challenges are both extremely entertaining and a great addition for the experienced player.

One thing to mention, though, is that Tony Hawk 4 more or less assumes that you’ve played at least one of the previous games before. The goals in the first level of this game are easily on par with the middle levels of Tony Hawk 3, and goals in later levels are considerably more difficult than anything found on even the last level of the previous games. Furthermore, there is no tutorial mode, which is rather surprising given that there was a fairly good tutorial in the last game. If Tony Hawk 4 is your first foray into the world of video skating, the learning curve might take you a while to get over before you start earning goals.

As far as control is concerned, if you played Tony Hawk 3 on the GameCube, you should feel right at home here, because nothing has changed aside from the added tricks. The GameCube controller’s inadequate D-pad becomes more apparent in this game than it did in Tony Hawk 3, since there are many more goals that require hitting certain tricks accurately, and there is only so much that the analog stick can do for you in that regard. After all, there is always the chance that your hands could be misaligned, causing you to botch a trick. All in all, though, the analog stick aside, though you might need to retrain yourself to use the GameCube button layout if you’re used to the PlayStation pad.

Graphically, everything looks as good as one would expect from the GameCube. All the trick animations are top-notch, and the parks are rendered believably. The camera does a good job of staying behind the skater, though when the camera angle changes suddenly, the result can be rather nauseating. The only real complaint I have about the graphics, other than some easily overlooked jagged edges, is that the people in the game, other than the skaters, are all rendered poorly. In truth, it looks like someone ran over their faces with a skateboard; their faces are smooshed together and any hair they have is attached to the polygons that make up their heads. Obviously, this is a minor complaint, but it’s something that one would hope the designers would have fixed by now.

Sound, as one would expect, is excellent, as usual. Voice acting is more prevalent, as the people who initiate the goals all tell you exactly what you need to do, and their speech is generally believable. (My personal favorite is when Ollie the Bum is screaming because he is seeing pink elephants.) The skaters all have their own individual bailing screams as well. The soundtrack features 36 tracks, comprised of a mix of rock and hip-hop. While I prefer the former, it’s easy enough to turn off whatever tracks you don’t want to listen to through the playlist. There are some good tracks included, like AC/DC’s “TNT”, but most of the tracks are fairly unremarkable, especially some of the tracks recorded by the skaters themselves.

Overall, there is a reason that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 is one of the most anticipated games of the season. It’s a vast improvement over its predecessors, and there’s enough play value to get considerably more than your money’s worth, especially if you try to complete all 190 goals in the game. While beginners might want to cut their teeth on some of the earlier games before trying this installment, veterans should have already been at the store before even reading this far. It’s that good. If Activision can continue to improve on the series in every installment as well as this game has, then the Tony Hawk franchise should be alive and well for years and years to come.

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