Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
Reviewed by Dogg
Yup it's that time again. Another year another Tony
Hawk game. Neversoft, developers of the first and
second game in the series have brought us the sequel
to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and that sequel is called
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. This version has already
been brought out on Sony's console and is now being
brought out on Nintendo's new console the Gamecube.
The Gamecube version of the game is almost infinitely
the same as the Sony Playstation 2 version, and they
all follow the same premises, but for a reason this
Gamecube game lacks something that the PS2 version
had and that my friends is online play. But chances
are almost nobody bought Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for
the online play so you are still offered many choices.
Anyone who's played any Tony Hawk game in the past
will feel right at home with this version. Part 3 of
the series gets rid of many of the stuff that killed
Tony Hawk 2 and it also fixes up many of Tony Hawk
2's biggest mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes in
part 2 was the use of money. In that game you had to
use money to get moves, specials, and a lot more
stuff. Getting money was crucial to beating that game
and I simply disliked that. Tony Hawk 3 gets rid of
the money system and to now advance to another level
you will have to follow the simple level objectives.
This also makes this action sports title, also like a
mission themed action sports title.
If you are looking for many new gameplay elements,
then please look away. This game offers up everything
that was seen in the past and just puts it into new
levels. But if the Òmanual" changed the way part 2
was played then part 3 has to have something to
change the way this game is played? Right. Well this
time instead of the manual there is the new revert
move. The revert can almost change the way this whole
game is played and the revert is only done with one button. Wow!
If you are worried about this game lacking many other
new moves, ( or tricks ) well then you are wrong.
This game offers up many new moves. There are also
even more new moves. Many of these new moves come in
the form of freestyle tricks and many more. Plus if
you do not think your character has any good tricks
then you can always adjust them so you can make sure
that your character has the best moves.
Speaking of characters, this game has many of them.
From Tony Hawk to Rodney Mullen to Mtv's Jackass star
Bam Margera. The only problem comes in the form of
new characters. Let's face it all these characters
are from the past 2 games and the only reason Bam
Margera is in here is because Bob Burnquist signed on
to be in another game. But many will still like the
characters this game features no matter what these
characters are cool and have proven time and time
again that they are pros.
Each character also has his or her special move. At
first you start out with 3 special moves, but as you
progress you will soon unlock many more making you
racking points up quite easy. Also there is a broad
selection of choices to choose from, from a 900
maneuver to a Christ Air maneuver. At times you think
the choices this game offers are endless and that is
actually what this game is trying to prove.
We all know that when you choose a character, that
your character would not be perfect. In the past
games if you opened up more levels then your
characters got more stat points. In this game
however, you actually got to find the stats yourself.
Now the stats are located all over the levels and
getting all five of them in an area will be quite a
task. In this game stat points will Òup" one area of
your characters stat meter. At times it doesn't look
like a big change to your character, but you will
soon find out that stat points will be quite crucial
to your boarding adventure sort of thing.
The PS2 version of this game offered everything with
a mixed bang and its biggest icing on the cake came
with controls. The Gamecube version however, suffers
from bad controls. These take a long while to get
used to and it also shows you how meant Tony Hawk 3
was for the Dual Shock Controller. However, with
practice comes perfection. This means I recommend you
try out Free Skate for a while to get used to your
characters moves, because you will need a lot more
help in this Gamecube Tony Hawk 3 quest.
In my opinion the game's worst feature comes in the
form of 2 player mode. I mean this game needs much
more options for full access to a 2 player type game.
Still the main purpose to buying this game comes in
the form of single player mode, so 2 player will be
the least of your problems.
The game offers slightly improved graphics over its
PS2 counterpart. The problem comes with how the
framerate acts. At times it can be the reason for a
bail and many other stuff. Framerate issues aside,
the graphics themselves are still pretty darn good.
As is the sound. This game's soundtrack is made up of
many hip hop songs and many rock and alternative
songs. Songs from Del Da Funky Homosapien and Alien
Ant Farm are just some of the soundtrack features in
this game. You can tell that Neversoft's biggest goal
came in the form of the soundtrack.
This game also offers an improved Create A Player
mode as well as an improved Skate Park Editor. The
game also runs faster than the PS2 version making
this version almost superior to the PS2 version. The
problem is lack of online play. And trust me this
might turn down some, but hell you didn't buy a
Gamecube nor this game for online play anyway so you
can just forget about that.
This game also has many secrets to unlock. These
secrets range mainly from getting new characters, but
let me just tell you that the new characters that are
yours to unlock are a good selection and chances are
you never expected those characters to be in there.
Overall Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is definitely worth
a purchase, if not a weekend rental. But if you guys
got both a PS2 and a Gamecube then I suggest you
invest yourself on the PS2 version because it is just
more abundant on secrets and in options.
Overall: 8 out of 10