### Product description

Skate as legendary Tony Hawk, or as one of nine top pros. Work your way up the ranks by landing suicidal tricks in brutal competitions to become the highest- ranked skate champ.

### Amazon.com

Tony Hawk, famous for his 720 move (a mid-air 360-degree somersault done twice), is widely credited as being one of the best skateboarders in the world. Hawk lends his technical advice and character likeness to this nine- level title, which is among the better skating titles on the PlayStation. While it is cool to play as Hawk, would-be skate pros can also choose to play as one of eight other skaters. Each character has a different riding style and at least three unique tricks to master.

Solo players will skate to win the world championship, with over 100 moves available to score points, including slides, grinds, and landing tricks. A split screen allows players to compete against each other. During this head- to-head mode, you can score style points, race between obstacles, or play tag. If you opt for graffiti mode, both players compete against each other by "tagging" objects while performing their tricks. A replay mode is available for players to view highlights at the end of a game.

The level design is enormous, with 10 interactive courses, including skate and pool parks, half pipes, and a downtown area. Each skating environment is filled with secret places, shortcuts, and obstacles. Once you get the moves down, you can perform a trick off of just about any object that you see. Tony Hawk is not the only star in this game--the music stands strong on its own. Cool cuts come from Primus and the Dead Kennedys--which can be inspiring during the frantic onscreen action. While game control is relatively solid, there are some minor problems in tight areas.

This title is so large it is overwhelming, given the enormity of levels and available moves. However, persistent skate pros will master this game with a little practice. (Fortunately, there is a practice mode to scrape your knees on.) _\--Kasty Thomas_

**Pros:**

* Variety of moves and tricks * Excellent course design and graphics * Solid controls

**Cons:**

* Control problems in tight areas

### Review

The concept of a skateboarding game isn't exactly new. Atari kicked off the genre with the still-classic 720 Degrees. Electronic Arts followed up with its event-based home game, Skate or Die. As skateboarding faded from the mainstream's view, the games stopped coming. Fast-forward to a decade or so later. Snowboarding games are all the rage. Sega's got Top Skater out in arcades, and EA returns with Street Sk8er, an abysmal PlayStation skating game. Now, between Tony Hawk and Rockstar's upcoming PlayStation skate sim, Thrasher: Skate and Destroy, we're in the middle of a skateboarding renaissance.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater takes a more arcade-like approach to the world of skating. The object of the game's career mode is to collect videotapes, much like Mario collects stars. With the exception of the three competition stages, the point of each level is to collect five videotapes. You can enter each stage as often as you want, but you can only skate around the stage for two minutes before having to start the stage over. Two of these tapes are received when you achieve certain scores within your two-minute limit. A third tape is picked up by collecting letters scattered around the level, eventually spelling the word skate. Another tape is scored by breaking five things in a level. The object you must destroy changes on each level and ranges from anti- skateboarding signs to police cars. The fifth tape is hidden somewhere on the level, and you must figure out how to get to it. You start career mode with only one level unlocked. As you pick up tapes, you'll unlock new levels and new skateboards, which raise your skater's stats.

The game features ten real-life pro skaters, which have been broken up into two styles: vert skaters and street skaters, who have slightly different tricks. Beyond that, there are a few subtle timing differences between the skaters, and each skater has three special tricks that can only be performed while your special meter is full. The special tricks include the 540 Board Varial, back flips, front flips, the 360 Shove It Rewind, Christ Air, and the Judo Madonna. Each of these tricks will bring in a higher score than most normal moves, if done correctly. Some of them can even be included in combos.

Aside from the career mode, there's also free skating, which lets you take a little more time examining a level and mastering your tricks. Single-session mode is a pure score competition, where you pick a level and try to get as many points as possible in two minutes. The two-player mode works on a vertical split-screen and has three different modes. Graffiti mode causes certain parts of the level to change to your color when you do tricks on them. Your opponent then must do a better trick on that part of the level to change it to his color. The person with the most colored pieces at the end of two minutes wins. Trick attack is a simple score battle. Horse is similar to the basketball game upon which it was based. Player one has ten seconds to do the best trick he can do. Player two must match or beat that trick to avoid getting a letter. The first person to get all five letters (spelling horse) loses. This is the slowest of the three modes, since the game goes through a short load while it switches skaters. The ability to choose the same skater here to reduce load times would have been nice.

Career mode doesn't take a whole lot of time to complete once you've gotten familiar with all the levels, but even after completing the game with all the skaters, you'll still want to go back and do some free skating. It's one of those games that will keep you coming back long after you've mastered it. The level design is part of what gives the game such longevity. The large levels have lots of extravagant areas, all ready for tons of combos, while the smaller levels are tightly packed with rails, ramps, and bowls.

The soundtrack is filled with songs by bands like the Dead Kennedys, Goldfinger, and Primus. I wasn't a huge fan of the soundtrack, but that's something better left to your personal taste in music. The sound effects are really outstanding. Rails clink when you jump off them, sidewalks have different textures than the street, and different ramp materials make different noises. My favorite sound in the game is probably the noise generated by skating on the metal half-pipes in the game's final level. The game's graphics are really good. The game runs at an excellent pace, and the camera rarely gets in your way. The bit of blood that shoots out of your head on the harsher wrecks is a very nice touch.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is a game for skaters and nonskaters alike. Some may be initially turned off by the occasionally questionable physics, but this little slice of unreality brings a lot of gameplay fun along with it. It would have been nice to see some more variety in the game's tricks, but as it stands, THPS is an outstanding game and is a worthy addition to anyone's PlayStation collection. --Jeff Gerstmann \-- _Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc._ \-- _GameSpot Review_

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