Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
Score: 95% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Activision Developer: Neversoft Entertainment Media: GCD/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: The soundtrack in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 has some big names on it, such as Public Enemy, Iron Maiden, System Of A Down, AC/DC, and N.W.A. - but if there's certain bands you'd rather not listen to, you can turn them off individually. Now there's a feature that should be in all games these days! Unfortunately, the graphics don't reflect such innovation. The graphics in THPS 4 are good, but are not really much of an improvement over the previous installment. The levels are nice and well detailed, and the character detail is pretty good, especially when you consider the amount of variation that can be achieved in the Create-A-Skater mode. As for the sound effects, you can tell that time went in to recording individual skater's sounds for wipeouts, and the character acting (for the non playing characters) is entertaining, though occasionally cheesy.
Gameplay: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 is definitely fun. There's not really any arguing that. Some of the new features that are added in THPS 4 are subtle, but add to the gameplay. One example of this is the new 'COMBO' system, whereby you have to collect the letters 'C-O-M-B-O' in the correct order before landing your trick. The fact that they all have to be collected within the same trick ramps up the difficulty level and really requires mastery of the balance meter to pull off some of the grinding COMBOs. One interesting feature of THPS 4 is that the levels are quite large and have several different tasks or 'missions' to achieve in each level. These all tend to be 'situation based'; story-based, but necessarily linear. Certain missions require others to be done first or require a certain amount of points to be gained, but for the most part, you can skate around and choose which goals you want to attempt next.
Difficulty: I have played some of the Tony Hawk games in the past, but I'm not what you would call a 'pro' at them. If you are, your experience may make it easier for you to play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4. I find that some of the tricks are a bit, well, tricky to pull off. Probably the hardest thing in THPS 4, however, is maintaining your balance during grinds (and other things that use the balance meter, such as skitching). There's a balance meter that seems to be exponentially more sensitive off to the sides, making it very easy to over compensate when trying to recover your balance.
Game Mechanics: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 improves on THPS 3 a bit, but mainly by tweaking what was already good. The expansive levels are really a nice touch, and give an almost GTA 3 feel to the game, on a smaller scale, of course. Perhaps the Pro Skater of the future will feature a sprawling city in which you can skate from one end to the other. It certainly looks like that's where Neversoft seems to be headed with the series... In general, the game is excellent. THPS 4 is a great game to play alone, or with friends. I think as the series has matured and each installment has received rave reviews, there has been a growing pressure to top the previous title. THPS 4 does just that, but not by a vast amount, leaving one question; What should we expect from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5?
-Geck0, GameVortex Communications AKA Robert Perkins
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