Biggest. Dissapointment. Ever
When THAW was in development, it's biggest trump card was a streaming city of Los Angeles where you wouldn't have to see one loading screen. As we all now know, this is true...to a point. There are no actual loading screens during gameplay, just corridors leading from one area to another where the game streams in the next section. Again, we all know that these corridors are skateable etc., it's just a very hard task to pull off on the current genration of hardware, and it really shows. Frame rate stutters hamper these sections greatly, making skating them harder than it should be, plus many of them are relatively empty and boring.
Speaking of boring, that is just one word you could use to describe the stgory mode in THAW. While, again, some of the ideas were really good, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Neversoft almost assumed that people hadn't played a Tony Hawk's game before, because there is a lot of unnessecary hand holding throughout the course of the story mode. It takes almost half of the game to complete you bag of tricks, which really makes the story chug along.
Once you have finally got all of your tricks, it's on to destorying most of LA to add parts to the 'Skate Ranch'. As good as this idea is, something about it just irks me, as it's really simplistic, majoritively boring, and feels almost ripped out of THUG 2. Hopefully Neversoft learns that the whole destruction theme is really tired and old now, and revert to making the next game in the series more skating-oriented.
A nice addition, however, is the addition of the BMX bike to the main story level modes. Using a separate control method to the on-board, the BMX is nice distraction for a while, and while it is nice that Neversoft didn't force-feed the bike, it would be nice if it played a bigger role than what it actually did.
A lot of these problems stem from just how short the story mode actually is, clocking in at between 8-12 hours, depending on how much you try to do in the game. As it stands, the make-up of the story mode is about 40% 'learning' tricks, and 55% destruction, with the last 5% being dedicated to actual skating. Fortunately, you dont' need to jump off your board and walk around as much as you have to in the 'Underground' games, but it's an even better thing when you've found that the off-board controls are even worse than in the past. The height you can jump off the board has been halved, making a lot of obstacles harder to get over than they need to be, although the wall-run is a nice addition.
Classic mode is back again, and is nice as a throwback to the series' roots, but it would be nice if Neversoft added either more classic levels, or created some specific 'Classic' levels. As it is, 5 levels doesn't really do much but add a very short distraction, as I blasted through it in about 2 hours. It should also be noted that PAL gamers once again get shafted, because we miss out on two extra levels as well.
As far as presentation goes, it's kind of a mixed bag. The environments look pretty good, and from a distance, that actual skaters don't look to bad, but get up close and most of them look really muddy and lack the clarity of the last few games. Remember in THUG when you could clearly make out the skaters faces etc.? Those days are long gone, or so it would seem on the current generation of hardware. Overall it doesn't look THAT bad, but this series has looked a LOT better than this, which is a statement that could really sum up this Neversoft's latest effort. The sound isn't to bad either, but again could be a lot better. Most of the pro's seem really uninterested, but the central characters are really well done, so it's a balance. Musically is also a mixed bag, but you can also use a custom soundtrack if you need to.
All up, this latest entry into the Tony Hawk's franchise seemed to have the most promise, but ended up falling well short of most expectations, and ended up becoming the biggest disappointment so far. Neversoft really has to go back to the drawing board with this series for the next installment, or risk the series fading into obscurity.