Blog:Review: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

So now that I've had a chance to play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, it's time for me to talk about the dumpster fire that was it's previous entry: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5. Strap on your protective gear folks, this will be a doozie...

Presentation
Before even starting the game, there is that infamous 7.7GB patch (if you can even call it that) that essentially completes the damn thing! If what people are saying is true and you only got 2 modes on the disc, then I'd hate to experience it first hand! Oversized patch aside, the game leaves a dreadful first impression at off the bat; visually, it is unappealing as it gets; flat textures, large but empty skate parks, no flow or rhythm to the levels themselves, and a really dodgy art style. The game uses cel-shading on the skater models and it doesn't work well considering they are based on real people. The developers claimed this decision was made to help improve performance, and while it can reach 60 frames per second, this excuse doesn't fly when you quickly see that the game still runs like shit. There's even less excuse now seeing as Pro Skater 1+2 actually maintains a solid 60fps in spite of being bigger, more detailed, and having more life to it. I'd go as far as to say that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, 4, and even 2 were superior in terms of graphics and level design, and those were on much older hardware and are, at most, 20 years old!

Then you have the loading...oh boy. One thing that made previous Pro Skater games so accessible is how quickly the games put you back into the action, whether you bailed, restarted your run, or chose to end it early. All of these actions worked because of how fast the recovery was; this game however? Bail, you're down for 3-5 seconds. Retry, followed by loading screen. What to end your run early? Tough shit, Sonny-Jim! Oh, and we've got objective markers that don't even work half the time, only to be completely pointless when you can simply pull up a menu and select a mission from there! I've even had the game soft crash during loading screens, forcing me to close the game, and fire it back up again. So all in all, the presentation is just a mess, and you have do go through so many menus just to do something as simple as upgrading your skater's stats.

Gameplay
On the surface, this game plays like a classic Tony Hawk game, with isolated skate parks to explore, and listed objectives to complete. So what is the problem, you may (or may not) be asking? Well, for one thing, the goals themselves are unoriginal as all hell. They often amount to either getting a big score with or without certain parameters, running through rings (sound familiar?), booting balls out of pools, or collecting shit. Aside from slight variations, these objectives repeat through the game, and they become a nightmare later on. The score objectives are the best ones by far because point scoring and doing tricks is what the series is best known for, but the other mission types can range from boring and repetitive to mind numbing, and it doesn't help that the level's aren't designed well enough to keep things interesting.

The levels themselves can only be described as empty and lifeless. The parks are fairly large, but they are so empty; no NPC's walking around, no vehicles driving around, no major landmarks, nothing to make these levels stand out. In fact, these levels aren't even as good as some the presets you'd find in the Create-A-Park mode. There's no sense of flow or rhythm with these levels, they're like stock assets that the developers didn't even bother to dress up or anything. As a result, there's very little combo potential that's only slightly redeemed by the manuals.

The thing that makes the overall package a pain to play is the controls. I don't know what happened, but I swear the developers just took the responsive and fluid controls of the older games, and tried to make them worse; turning feels rather heavy and lethargic, spins are so painfully slow that you can barely pull off a 180 degree rotation! I also hate that you can't control your skater for a second or two after hitting a wall. It's like the game really tries its best to take control away from the player, and it's tedious to say the least. Other mechanics also feel out of place, like the Slam mechanic. Originally intended to be a combo finisher, the only thing it is good for is disrupting the flow of your combo, and it is only made worse by being mapped to the same button as Grind. Power-ups are also introduced, but I don't know what some of them are used for; a good example is in Bonfire Beach were you can set your board on fire. I have no idea what it does other than lighting torches in one mission. The Asteroid Belt has a moon gravity power-up which is best suited as a cheat, not an actual gameplay mechanic, as it can make playing that level a pain in the ass.

One change that doesn't benefit gameplay at all is how Special moves work. Triggered by filling the Special bar and pressing L1/LB, it turns every trick into a Special move instead of specific button combinations. It's nowhere near as rewarding when you pull these off just by playing normally, and they can ruin a really good run when you get a Special move you didn't want to do; the Indy Backflip or whatever it is has ruined so many great runs I've had that I can't count them. Specials are more of a hindrance to me than a score booster. On top of that, the Special moves are all the same for every skater, meaning that Tony Hawk and his son Riley, for example, play identically to each other. The feeling that the skaters play identically to each other is further accentuated by them all having stat levels of 0 in all areas, with the only differences being their names and their appearances.

Content
The game only has a small number of skaters in it, around 13 in total (3 of which are guests), plus a comparatively shallow custom skater feature. You only get a small pool of presets and outfits and is not as comprehensive as past games. Only a handful of skaters from previous games return here, like Tony & Riley Hawk, Andrew Reynolds and Nyjah Huston, while Lizzie Armanto and Leticia Bufoni are new faces (although they are poorly represented here), but again, none of the 13 skaters play any differently from each other, an issue which Pro Skater 1+2 did fix.

There are only 10 levels in the game, but the last 3 levels (Mountain, Wild West, and Underground) aren't worth playing since there are no achievements/trophies associated with them, plus there is no reward for completing the career mode with each individual skater, so the replay value is diminished completely. As I said earlier, the mission variety is severely lacking, and they often repeat throughout the game, making it even more boring as a result. There is a Create-A-Park mode in there as well, but I didn't really play around with this much, since I don't think I'm that creative to warrant spending a lot of time here, thus I don't have much to say about it.

On a somewhat positive note, the soundtrack is pretty decent, with a selection of some good rock tracks in there. The rap and dubstep songs aren't that good, but that's like one or two tracks out of the whole lot, so the soundtrack is definitely a redeeming quality at least.

Conclusion
Despite a few rare moments of fun to be had, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 is a disaster from top to bottom. I have sunk more hours into the game than I would like to admit (I even got the Platinum trophy for it if you can believe it), since I do find some parts to be quite enjoyable... at times. But those moments are fleeting at best, and having now played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, all of this game's flaws are more noticeable, and I don't see myself returning to it any time soon. On this game's page, one user compared it to Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), but I'd say it's more like Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric in terms of how much damage it did to the series' reputation. I will admit, this game isn't as bad as The Simpsons: Skateboarding, but it's still pretty awful. If you're interested in playing THPS 1+2, or you've already played it, there is no reason to play this game, unless you really want to see just how bad the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater formula can truly get.

Kat's Rating: This Hurts Slightly...

