Since the late 90’s, the Tony Hawk series has been quite profitable for Activision. A game has come out for every platform and always receives rave reviews. I consider the Tony Hawk franchise comparable to an Applebee’s: you always know you are going to get good service, and decent food, but it’s not a meal you’ll be talking about days after it happens.
Let’s bring you up to speed: Tony Hawk is a professional skateboarder, well known for doing some amazing tricks and stunts while on his board. In the original game, you did the same thing while taking on the role of Tony.
This game has some additional twists from the original franchise and THUG2 for the console. Of course there’s the traditional “classic mode” – you pick a skater, pick a difficulty level and pick a venue. You’ll start off in Barcelona, Spain and move your way through the globe as you complete specific goals. These levels are timed – you only have two minutes to run through a level. During these two minutes you’ll have to accomplish goals like “collect the letters S-K-A-T-E, collect C-O-M-B-O all in one fluid motion, get a certain number of points (you earn points by skating), grinding some specific rails and collecting secrets.
What’s the difference between the console version and the PSP version? Not much. In this mode there are 4 additional levels bringing the total venues to 16. It does add to the single player experience – the ‘level tree’ isn’t linear – in some areas, when you unlock the next level you have your choice of two venues instead of one. It does break up the “I have to clear this level before getting to the next one” monotony which is always a good thing.
In addition to the classic mode, there’s also the story mode aka “World Destruction Tour”. In it you’re on Team Tony competing against Team Bam Margera. Bam is a guy who, well likes to break things. There are three different difficulty levels to choose from, and then you’re off and running. There are some cut scenes with audio (not just text), which is always good. You create a custom skater who teams up with a pro and then cover the world meeting additional partners – some celebrities like the guy from Jackass to name a few.
You’d think that’s it for single player mode, but you would be wrong. In addition to the world tour mode and the classic mode, there’s also the ‘create a mode’ feature. In this mode, you can create a skater for starters. What makes the game better than the console version is the feature allows you to put your face on the PSP via the USB cable and the memory stick pro duo. Of course you’ll need a photograph off of your PC for this feature. It’s decent, not a perfect digital representation, but far away, I might mistake it for me, so that’s fine.
In create a goal mode, you set all the rules for a level. Don’t like the points rule? Change it. You do have to unlock the levels in order to create goals for them, but I can live with that.
Maybe you don’t like the moves in the game. Well, guess what – you can create your own tricks. Phew. Kudos to the developers of this game for making it so replayable and editable. The game itself isn’t that new, but the customization you can do in this game is amazing.
Gameplay in THUG2 Remix is very similar to gameplay of its console brethren and older games. Various combinations of buttons and the d-pad give you tricks. The manual explains them all very well and the training modes are very good, so if this is your first foray into Tony Hawk, you’ll be fine. The d-pad controls your skater while the analog stick controls the camera. I’m not a huge fan of the d-pad, but it works and the control is good.
The audio is superb in this game. The soundtrack has something for everyone. The Ramones, The Doors, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sugarhill Gang and Frank Sinatra(!) are all providing background tracks while you grind. I’m not sure that Mr. Sinatra foresaw his music being used in an extreme skateboarding game, but believe it or not, it works very well in it.
The game does support multiplayer via ad-hoc (PSP to PSP) mode. There are quite a few different game options you can select and you can play with up to four people in this mode; however infrastructure mode is not supported in this game, which is a shame.
The four new levels, including Las Vegas, definitely add to the single player component of the game when compared to the console versions, however at $49.99 it is a stretch to re-buy the entire game for these 4 new levels. Some old school levels are also included as unlockables so if you wanted to go back in time to an older version of Tony Hawk, you can if you unlock the level.
Replay value is enormous, the game is a blast to play even though the main story mode is over relatively quick. As I said at the beginning of the review, when you buy Tony Hawk, you know what you are getting up front and it doesn’t disappoint – I just wish it had infrastructure online play.
