The undeniable King of Skaters is here; and it is time to break backs
The gameplay was simply the best in any game ever made up to that point. You have flip tricks (square) and grab tricks (circle) and the aim of the game is to skate around imaginative levels while connecting flip, grab, grind, lip and manual tricks to get the biggest score possible. This basically gives you a million different combos for you to do so one play through is always different to the next. But THPS had created this formula and THPS2 had perfected it with the manual so what else could THPS3 do to make it better? The revert of course. In the first two games you could do a big combo but it would have to of been lots of grinds and manuals because when you use a flip or grab trick there is no way that you can continue the combo so the combo ends. So what they did in THPS3 is that when you do a trick, you press R2 when you are coming down the half pipe and he “reverts” (basically just switches his feet around) and it lets you continue your combo. It is very easy to use and is probably the best thing to ever come to the Tony hawk series. THPS2 experts have to change their srategegies because we are in a completely different ball game here.
There are lots of different game modes in 3 including Career, single session, free skate, online, multiplayer and create-a-skater. The career is the classic mode which THPS fans all know and love. If you have only played THUG and beyond the classic mode is what the career mode on the first three THPS games. You have two minutes in a certain level and there are 10 goals for you to fulfil. You can try the levels as many times as you want and you don’t have to complete the ones you have already finished. There are 8 levels and three of them are tournament levels where you 3 minutes to impress the judges by completing big combos. So you have 50 goals to complete and it will take you about 10-12 hours to unlock all the levels (which is sort of the point in career mode) but will take you 14-15 hours to finish some of the devilishly hard goals. Also you can go the beautiful levels at your own pace in free skate with no time limit and no goals. I spent a lot of time there just trying to perfect my skills so you are probably going to spend at least 3-4 hours on that mode. I have never been on single session before (it is like the career mode but you only have one go) because I never saw the point in it but oh well. But it is the online mode which really shines. This was the first ever PS2 game to go online (Another reason why it got a 10) and it is easy and quick to set up a 4 player game and you can choose from most of the multiplayer options. It is really fun to play online and surprised me with its depth and lasting value. The multiplayer is back with all the standard modes and while it is still definitely fun to play, the online mode overshadows it a bit.
Simply put, the graphics in this game were MIND-BLOWING. Just the amount of detail put into the individual buildings and structures in this game is immense and still holds up today. The skaters don’t look quite as good as the levels but the faces and clothing is still quite detailed. I also have to applaud the level design in the game because it is arguably the best in the series. The 8 main levels are large, beautiful and most important of all, extremely fun. Many of the levels have become cult classics such as Airport, Los Angeles, Canada and my all-time favourite, Suburbia. The game also has a number of “sample” levels that have not got much in the detail department but are very, very fun. There is a create-a-park mode included and you can make a really good park if you put time into it but I found it is not as good as the ones in later games. I was very excited when I heard that you could make female skaters in the create-a-skater mode and Activision kept their promise in the game. The CAS was the deepest one in the series back then and it allowed me to make a tomboy-skater punk-emo-goth-mosher-Avril Lavigne hybrid who is amazing at grinding and getting big air.
The sound is a class act as always in the series with artists like Red Hot Chilli’s, Alien Ant Farm, Xzibit, CKY and Motorhead. Speaking of Motorhead, they provide their most famous song (Ace of Spades, if you didn’t know) to the most amazing intro in the history of anything (OK, maybe not as good as Tombi’s intro, but its close). Most importantly, the songs fit the game really well and they haven’t just picked popular songs and shoved them into the soundtrack so they will get more publicity. Each song feels like a song that a mosher would play on their iPod while skating and my god, the songs are great. I’m not a mosher, goth or emo by any stretch of the imagination but I can’t stress how much I love the songs on the soundtrack. The actual skateboarding sounds are not as impressive since they have been used for the two earlier games but they do strike something in my inner conscience and I really like them for some reason. As aforementioned the game will take you about 15 hours to finish everything 100% on career mode and people might draw criticism in that it is not as long as other games but if think about the extra possible 10 hours you will get from free skate and multiplayer and the countless number of hours you will play online then that excuse is pretty thin unless you don’t have online. Also the game has no storyline of any shape and form and many people will be disappointed seeing as that would be the perfect place to take the series to the next step. I must say that I was slightly disappointed about that but I would have been very angry if they had put in a story in sacrifice for the gameplay.
There are very minor problems with the game such as the way in which you cannot save yourself if you spin off a half pipe (fixed in THUG) and the unnecessary amount of blood (still there), but these are all very small things. Overall, this game keeps to the blueprints that were set by its predecessors while blowing them straight out of the water at the same time. It is a true classic for our time.