Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
Reviewed by KasketDarkfyre
As skate boarding games go, there really isn't a game
genre better known than the Tony Hawk series which
has spanned across several different systems through
a couple of various sequels. In this outing, you take
control of Tony Hawk, and a couple of new skaters in
an all out skate fest to the finish, busting out
heavy scoring combinations. sick tricks and thumb
busting rail grinds. How this version of the game
differs though is another story altogether and you'll
have to take the good with the bad in this simple respect.
The Game Cube has no intentions of making a modem
feature for the machine and the option to have that
in the game has been taken out completely. Because of
this small feature, if you have both a Game Cube and
Play Station 2, you may do well to buy the PS2
version of the game and use that. However, if you're
a Game Cube owner only, this version of the game
really isn't any different than the other one other
than the control set up is slightly different to work
with! Either way, Tony Hawk 3 for the Game Cube is
just as good as the Play Station 2 version and X-Box
owners only get the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2x, so be glad.
Where as in the first two games, you had to complete
mission sections of the game, fulfilling gaps and
collecting money, the only thing that really has
changed is that you're able to make the stages pretty
much bend to your whim while you traverse through
them. Examples of this range from making certain
parts of the stage move around freely after you've
pulled a trick or perform a grind to stop something
as wild as a local car chase! These missions are no
longer just ranged from performing tricks and getting
a top score, but now they force you to really hone
your skills in order to complete them and move on to
the next stage. Some of these can be rather silly,
and a couple of them really don't make much sense,
but all in all they do add a slight bit of variety to
the game that wasn't quite seen in the past releases
of the series.
When you talk about, or hear about Tony Hawk Pro
Skater games, the most immediate thing that comes to
mind is the tricks that you perform and the scores
that you receive in doing them! Nothing has really
change in this respect, in which your main focus is
to perform, and to do so correctly to get the heavy
scores that you'll need, you have to learn the new
tricks that have been added to the game. Ground
tricks like the Revert help you to link in your
combinations, while Manuals {ala Dave Mirra 2} will
help you to continue on your trick line. Other
features that are rather new to the series, is the
ability to pick up Stat Points in different areas to
increase your skaters attributes to your particular
liking, even though if you take the time to collect
them all, you'll find a fully attributed skater at
your command anyway!
Game play isn't just limited to the one player game
either. With the ability to have up to a couple of
other players with you on the Game Cube four way, it
can turn into a pure mad house. This just opens up a
completely new door for more advanced amounts of
competition, and you don't have to rely on having a
multi-tap device or a ton of friends around to play.
If you compile this onto the feature of being able to
either create your own skater with his or her own
move sets, or being able to take an already created
skater {such as Tony Hawk} and customizing him or her
to your liking, you'll have a wider variety of things
that you can do with your skater before you even start playing!
But, as with most games that come into the higher
numbers of sequels, you'll have problems with the
game after about an hour of play, in which all of the
goals seems pretty much linear, and even finding the
"hidden" decks are easy enough to complete. Once you
have a particular trick line in the competitions that
you face, you'll find that the higher your score, the
better off your overall will be and it doesn't matter
who you use, or what you do, once you've reached a
certain score, you'll be able to win no matter how
many times you crash and burn into the ashpalt! This
comes less as a surprise and more of a drag when
you're really looking for something new in an already
well played and well worn series such as this one.
When you boil down the new features, as opposed to
the ones that you've probably already played, you'll
find that it is more of the same with a few added
functions to make you forget that plain and simple fact!
Controlling the game is easy enough to do, and anyone
who has played the game before will find that this
version doesn't play any different than the last
other than the fact that you've got a couple of new
moves added to your list. Learning how to use these
moves effectively will go a long way into helping you
attain some sick scores in later levels, so learning
how to use the interface is key to really playing the
game. If you've never played the game before, there
is a tutorial that you can access and use, and not
only that, but it is given to you in the voice of Tony Hawk!
This helps to ease the learning curve in such a way
that you don't have too many mistakes other than just
learning how to time and land the tricks correctly.
If you're still having problems with the control
after this, then most of it will be just learning how
to time your grab and air tricks, and how to use the
balance meter when grinding a rail or pulling a
manual. However, you may find that because the Game
Cube controller is a little harder to work with, that
some of these combinations are harder to pull off for
the high scoring combinations. If you can learn to
work with it, then it really isn't much of a problem,
but if not, you might as well stop playing the game!
Visually speaking, the game is awesome in every way.
Clean stages and well designed skaters with fluid
movements and trick performances really go a long
way. With the customization that is available before
you play, you can pretty much make your own skater or
customize another skater to your style and liking
through a well thought out creation menu! The stages
are expansive in their own way, without going too far
overboard, and they also have a life of their own
with pedestrians and moving traffic as well as moving
objects out in the background. From the streets of
Los Angeles to the snow covered mountains of Canada,
you'll find that there is plenty to look at and much
to see without the use of special effects! Combine
this in with the speed of the overall game, and
you'll find that THPS 3 is a far visually superior game than
the first two, and a well recieved piece of eye candy.
The audio here is actually well done and helps the
game immensely in terms of the music that you have
and the ambient sound effects that you'll encounter
throughout the game itself. The music is strictly
skate boarding music with appearences from different
groups that really boost the action and help keep the
pace of the game flowing at every step! Something
that you may have to do, is turn the music down,
because some of it is a little too loud, and can
cause a headache when listened to, too much. The
sound effects are also a nice touch, allowing the
gamer to really feel absorbed into the virtual world,
with people speaking to you, screeching car tires and
in some cases, three dimensional sound effects that
move from right to left or vice versa depending on the stage!
Tony Hawk 3 is a good game, and not to be shunned by
any means but I must concur on a point, in which the
series really is starting to draw out and border on
boring. With the amount of new features that were
added, THPS 3 makes a pretty good showing, with some
good looking visuals, great sound and a relatively
complex to learn and easy to play game play interface.
This game doesn't have the online capabilities, but
does tend to make me want to play it some more, in
the long run, most gamers probably won't find more
than a few hours enjoyment and once the secrets are
unlocked, it'll be something of a party game to play.
Rent first, those who are die hard skater fans will
find this title to be a great way to kick off a title
series on a new system, but those who are weekend
gamers will get their fix out of a three day rental.
Overall: 7 out of 10