Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 review

Reviewed on: PC

By Samuel R. Auras

In this age of remakes and remasters, there are bad examples and good examples. Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, from last year, was a super positive example for me: a game I’ve loved since childhood, which I played endlessly, and which was turned into something sensational. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 follows the same line, taking everything good about the original PlayStation 1 had and perfectly bringing it to the present day.

THPS 1+2 is the pinnacle of the sports game made to be fun, as a skateboarding game needs to be. Arcade gameplay that, many times, sets aside the infamous realism, so present in so many games nowadays, to be something purely fun to play. Your character flies up the ramps, pulls off absurd tricks with ease, executes any move with the touch of a button. The controls are precise and intuitive and let you do incredible things from the very first moment.

The game has an excellent character creation mode, with hundreds and hundreds of customization options, from tattoos to sneakers, socks and caps, plus, of course, umpteen different skateboards to choose from. And you can change the color of everything, leaving your character just the way you want. And then you start the game’s campaign, and you collect points to make improvements to your character, almost like an RPG: do I put one more point in “speed” or in “jump height”? Do I prefer to improve my balance in performing a manual or another trick? And you can always undo your choices and redistribute your points, again showing that the game isn’t very concerned with being something boring and annoying, but rather an arcade game whose only goal is fun.

A surprising point of this game is the number of game modes. Playing alone, you have the campaigns equivalent to the first two Tony Hawk games, adding up to a total of 19 levels. Some of them are competitions for the best score: just pull off incredible tricks and beat the scores of the computer-controlled opponents. In most levels, however, you actually have an amusement park with several objectives, such as collecting the challenging VHS tapes, one per level, always in plain sight but hard to reach. In one of the levels you immediately see a large water fountain right in the middle, and one of the objectives is simply to “drain the fountain”, and then you explore every corner of the map to figure out how. And everything is a lot of fun, each map full of secrets, hidden areas, Easter eggs, and each with its own personality. A favorite is the Hangar, in which you can do tricks over a helicopter, and parts of airplanes… It’s a map that, at first, seems small, but is crammed with secrets in every corner.

If you get tired of playing alone (I find that unlikely), the game has an expansive multiplayer mode, both local and online. There are several game modes, not just “get the best score”, plus several leaderboards for you to compare your performance with your friends’ or try to be the best in the world. Here comes my only complaint about the game: I had a slightly negative experience a few (very few) times during online play, with lag in some matches. It was in a minority, but it bothered me a bit. That is literally the only flaw of the game for me.

Permeating all the game modes are several (more than 700) secondary challenges, from some very simple ones like “get X points in 2 minutes”, to more complex ones that require performing a specific trick at a specific spot in a certain level using a given character. They are completely optional, but will leave you with plenty to do if you want. And everything, absolutely everything you do in the game, from simply playing a casual match to religiously chasing every challenge, gives you cash to spend in the game’s shop, buying new clothes, skateboards, etc., and experience, which raises your player level and opens up more and more possibilities.

If you’re like me, you’ll be even happier knowing there’s a sensational park creation mode. You can build your own skate park and publish it online, and the options are impressive. The creator really gives you a lot of power, and anything you can imagine in a park, the game lets you do. Many pieces are completely editable in size and shape, which gives an absurd freedom of creation, and if you doubt it, just look at other players’ best creations. There are sensational things.

As if all this weren’t enough, the game is beautiful and runs without any flaws at 60 fps, which is great for a game of this type, which requires precision in the commands. I honestly am not the person who keeps noticing graphics quality, resolution, or anything like that, so what I can tell you is, simply, that the game’s visuals and performance leave nothing to be desired. Not only the visuals, but also the audio. Tony Hawk was one of the series that formed my musical taste, along with others like Need for Speed and Burnout. All the original songs are here, plus others that match the game perfectly.

Although our memory makes us remember certain old games fondly, many times reality is different, and the game perhaps had flaws that, at the time, we didn’t even notice. That’s where well-made remakes come in: they bring to reality a game the way you remember it being back in the day, and not necessarily the way it really was. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 sets out to do this, and does so perfectly. In this world that needs “scores”, I feel obliged to take away half a point for the problems I had online, but honestly, there is nothing else negative to say about this game. Highly recommended.

Narrative: –
Mechanics: 9.0
Audiovisual: 10.0

AVERAGE: 9.5