Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (2005)

Genre: Sport  |  Players: 1-2 / 2-8 Online  |  Developer: Neversoft

Oh, no, not another Tony Hawk game post! Yes, but there's something positive to say this time, so I don't have to feel depressed by the end of it.

The main one-player game has the same awful 'One Goal at a Time' structure as the previous three entries, but for an 'open world' setting it does an admirable job at fooling you into thinking there are no loading times between areas.

The story is better than T.H.U.G's was. It's even kind of funny at times. You're a regular nobody, a wannabe, fresh off the bus, required to prove your skills to the local doucebags skaters before you can get a foot in the competition door and land some sweet sponsorship deals. Along the way you'll make friends and play a key role in the building of a private Skate Ranch.

You could play through that half of the game if you want, you might even enjoy parts of it, but the best thing about T.H.A.W is that it has CLASSIC MODE!

Classic Mode is respectful to the structure of THPS 1-3. You're given a set amount of time and a set number of goals (including Secret Tape) that when completed don't halt the action – you can keep going, stringing goals together in one glorious run. And, as before, you can boost your abilities by finding and acquiring Stat Points. The difficulty level is set kind of high, so new players may well be succumbing to frustration at times, but eventually you'll learn the layout of the levels and the button presses needed to score big combos.

More praise: the soundtrack has some excellent tunes from the likes of (in no particular order) Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, D.R.I., Public Enemy, Spirit Caravan, Green Day, The Doors, The Bravery, Motley Crue, and lots more (sixty-three in all).

Interestingly, the voice of the main character (Kensucky) in the one-player campaign is Will Friedle, who you may know as Terry McGinnis/Batman from Batman Beyond (aka Batman of the Future, 1999-2001). His new best friend is voiced by Cree Summer, who played Terry's friend Max in the same show.

3½ boulevards of broken wheels out of 5

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (2002)

If the loud parts of the internet are to be believed, a majority of Tony Hawk game fans consider Tony Hawk's Underground (2003), aka T.H.U.G, to be the turning point for the franchise, the game where it went from strength to shambles. I differ in that I feel THPS 4 was that point; it was the title that changed the core structure upon which all else was built. T.H.U.G just took it to the next (lowest) level.

Gone are the quick, arcade style, individual runs, replaced by a more open-world, free-skate environment in which tasks or goals have to be initiated by speaking to NPCs, and to do that you first have to find the damned NPCs in the now larger environments. Making each area more expansive may sound good in theory, but in practice it means that there are less nearby objects to combo to and you have further to travel to find the next goal each time you complete one. (You can choose goals from a list in the menu once you've discovered them, but why would you want to do that?) Furthermore, having the S-K-A-T-E and C-O-M-B-O letters spread further apart makes gathering them less enjoyable.

Stat Points are now earned from completing the aforementioned tasks, not littered around the environment for you to collect. It's a process that's at odds with the illusion of freedom that the 'open-world' is supposed to give you, and to some degree it dictates the order in which you can do certain things.

The most notable consequence of the change, however, is that the huge sense of pride a player felt when achieving more than one goal in a single run is no longer possible. You have one task and once it's achieved you're returned to the free-skate-esque environment to hunt down the next one. The transition from being 'on a task' to 'off a task' is an ugly, abrupt and jarring one, making the already unfavourable process seem even more poorly considered.

I’ve saved the worst until last. Prepare for eye-twich. There are mini-games.

On a positive note, the customisation options are extensive for a game of the era, and the number of hidden, unlockable skaters is generous, so you can at least look cool in-game while you're wishing you'd picked up the THPS3 disc instead.

2½ flippity-doos out of 5

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (2001)

Genre: Sport  |  Players: 1-2  / Up to 4 online (PS2 only)  |  Developer: Neversoft

THPS 1 and 2 were both fun games but in truth they weren't quite as sophisticated as some of us would've liked. Sometimes even the simplest thing was more difficult than it ought to have been, and the frame rate was inconsistent on the larger levels. On the surface THPS 3 doesn't do much radically different from its predecessors, but to play it is to discover that Neversoft successfully honed the formula to perfection; everything, that is, except the tricky frame rate.

The new revert manoeuvre effectively balances gameplay for people who prefer ramps to street, enabling combos to be continued while tricking on vert. Do it successfully and you can even ease into a manual, hop off the vert and transition to the nearest street obstacle or rail for the best of both worlds with your score multiplier unbroken. Keep the balance meter from tipping over and you can chalk up massive scores. (Combine with Gaps for more impressive numbers.)

The character customisation isn't extensive but nor is it lacking too much. Hats, hairstyles, glasses, tees, etc, can be unlocked and worn. The same applies to hardware, new decks, wheels, etc. None of it makes a damn bit of difference to how your skater performs, but it’s a nice touch, nonetheless.

Once you've chosen your preferred style it’s onto career mode with your custom skater. There are only eight levels, which doesn't sound very much, but there are multiple goals to achieve within each one. If you only achieve one goal per run, save it and try for something else on subsequent runs; they carry over so you don't need to do them all in one try. It’s the usual TH procedure.

There’s incentive to replay each level with the Pros, provided you enjoy watching unlockable skate videos. If you’re playing a skating game then you’re probably going to enjoy skate videos. Rodney Mullen’s is mind-blowing. I strongly suspect he’s an actual wizard, unbearded and in disguise.

Perhaps the most enduring aspect for me personally is that I can no longer hear Motorhead’s ‘Ace of Spades’ without thinking of the game’s opening credits. The two things are forever wedded in my mind.

5 crucial stat points out of 5

Note: originally on PS1 (developed by Shaba Games and a lot less technically advanced), PS2, GameCube and GBC, it was ported to other formats by various devs: N64 (Edge of Reality); PC + Mac (Gearbox Software); GBA (Vicarious Visions). Obviously the GBC and GBA versions will be radically different than even the PS1 version, but I should also mention that while the GC version looks prettier than the PS2 it has major problems in other areas. In short, consider anything written above this Note to apply ONLY to PS2, PC and Xbox.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD (2012)

Genre: Sport  |  Players: 1 - 4  |  Developer: Robomodo

It’s sad when the most you can hope for from a beloved game franchise is that the next entry isn't as weak as the previous one you played. The joy that’s associated with a purchase is replaced by fragile hope or, in the case of THPS, an expectation of disappointment. Having played the game I'm left with the paradoxical feeling that lingers when you expect disappointment and you get disappointment.

It begins in the Warehouse, the first level in the first ever THPS game. It was and still is the perfect place to start for new players and it presented an equally perfect opportunity for developer Robomodo to introduce seasoned pros to any tweaks made to the game’s control style. But right from the off it’s clear that more time was spent making the levels look a little prettier than was spent on bringing a very old control method up to date. I read some place that they had full access to Neversoft’s code, but you’d never know it.

It’s an amalgamation of the first and second games only, so the moves available to the player are limited, but that’s no excuse for the arbitrary way something will work one minute and fail the next. Take Venice, for example; you don’t need to be near the spray cans to pick them up, but jump directly through the middle of the secret DVD and it’ll not even register. Collecting S-K-A-T-E is a game of chance based more on luck than skill. Doing what’s required to perform a specific trick will either do what's expected or do something completely different. And those green fences are the work of Satan; they're so broken.

Subsequent DLC added the ability to revert and offered up three levels from THPS 3 (Canada, Airport, Los Angeles), but my love for THPS 3 keeps me from buying it.

There’s no two player split screen (why the hell not?), but there are online modes (not on PC) for up to four players, including Graffiti, Hawkman, Trick Attack and a new mode called Big Head Elimination.

I sincerely hope that if there's ever another home console Hawk game it manages to capture what made the pre-T.H.U.G games so appealing, so that I can once more give the series the praise it used to deserve.

2 face-plants out of 5

Tony Hawk's Proving Ground (2007)

Genre: Sport | Players: 1 or Online Multi

Developer: Neversoft (Xbox 360 + PS3) / Page 44 Studios (PS2 + Wii)

I consider myself a veteran when it comes to the Tony Hawk games. I’ve played Pro Skater 1, 2, 3 and 4, Underground 1 and 2, American Wasteland and this. That’s eight games in all. I've seen the series climb from humble but hopeful beginnings to the spectacular heights of THPS3, and then subsequently fall hard on its ass, clutching at wild ideas that have little to do with skating. Proving Ground was a new low. There’s not enough room here to list everything that’s wrong with it.

There’s a story of sorts. You’re a noob, barely able to ollie a pebble. With help from the Pros you’ll learn new tricks, new skills, a new way of looking at things and, like the series itself in the early days, climb the ladder of success.

There are three environments: Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington. They exist as one large open-world area. There’s no loading as you traverse from one to the other, but there’s loading at other times to make up for it, like when you cock-up a task for the twentieth time because they’re so fucking difficult.

A number of in-game arcade machines are littered around the environment that, once unlocked, will allow you to play something called Tony Hawk 2000. The score targets, the goals, the collect S-K-A-T-E and C-O-M-B-O tasks are recreated as they were in the early games. It’s a game within a game, so you’re still in the same environment, but it’s a lot more fun than the main game. They should have dispensed with all that other crap and made TH2000 the focus.

Extras include short promos (i.e. adverts) and, for some reason, a Rolling Stones video, Sympathy for the devil. Best Stones song ever! Wait… it’s a Fatboy Slim remix. Bloody Hell. The disappointment never ends.

Amazingly, the multiplayer aspect is still available at time of writing. Game modes are: Graffiti, Trick Attack, H.O.R.S.E and Free Skate. You should be able to figure out what they entail by the names.

2 sketchy reverts out of 5