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TONY HAWK'S PRO SKATER 4 (PS2, XBOX, GC)
Better than dodging monkey poo...
By WILL BARKER
 Neversoft
must have gone back to the drawing board, and perhaps even the Tony forums,
to come up with Tony Hawk 4.
Why?
Simple: It's easily the best
game in the series - it eclipses it's forerunner by a margin bigger than
two was to one, or three was to two, too.
Confused? You and me both...
But let's just say that Tony Hawk 4 is not to be missed.
With AC/DC playing the title
song, the intro is enough to get most phat sk8ers foaming at the mouth:
I'll never tire of seeing Tony perform his 900 in full motion DVD video.
Delving into the game proper,
like the titles before it, Tony Hawk 4 lets you pick one of fourteen professional
skaters, such as the Hawkmeister himself, rockin' Steve Caballero and
the hard grinding Jamie Thomas. Of course, you can also create a custom
player, which is hours of fun in and of itself.
Again, the basic premise is
the same as the other games before it: Complete goals in order to progress
through the increasingly intriguing levels. From the main menu, you can
go for a free skate, a single session, take part in a number of 2-player
games (with a few new modes to boot), create your own skate park, system
link for über-fun or hit the career mode.
 There is also the
Xbox Live! online aspect to the game, but as the service isn't yet operational
here in Australia, we couldn't test it. It sounds sweet though, with online
tournaments already kicking off.
We asked Old Man GameBlitz
for a return trip to the States and $5000 spending money, but turns out
he'd spent the last of the company's money on Enron shares...
We had a chat to Kristy from
Activision late in 2002 and she said that when the service is launched
in Australia, Tony 4 will work with it, so from that you can assume the
same will happen for European and Asian territories.
Anyway, back to the single-player
game, and from the outset it's great to see that there are plenty of new
moves in Tony Hawk 4, the most notable being the ability to skitch cars.
Skate + hitch. That is, grab onto the back of moving vehicles to gain
shitloads of speed or to beat specific goals.
You can also properly grind
moving objects, such as cars and perform spine transfers over adjoined
quarter pipes, which is a thoughtful addition to the game that will have
the purists grinning from ear to ear.
There's heaps of new flatland
moves, which add a whole extra dimension to combos, and when you do a
hand plant or similar stall, you can even mash the grab and kickflip buttons
to pull off a number of funky tweaks. Truly, the extra moves alone warrant
the purchase - but wait, there's more…
 Unlike all the Hawk
titles before it, No. 4 moves outside the square and offers a more logical
and gratifying career mode.
Instead of getting 2:00 minutes
to power through levels and complete goals, once you've picked a level,
you can skate around with no time on the clock.
This not only allows you to
survey the levels and collect cash, but it also gives beginners a stress-free
environment to hone their skills.
Most levels have about 14 goals
each, and talking other people scattered around the levels accesses these.
This way you're given a set amount of time, which differs from goal to
goal, to complete said tasks. You can also pause the game and select 'Restart
last goal' which is another time-saving bonus. Neversoft - we salute you!
The goals are much more innovative
this time around, too. Collecting the letters to form SKATE, getting high
scores and finding four or five specific objects are still there, but
you'll also have COMBO goals, where you have to collect the letters during
one linked trick.
It can get really tough in
the later levels, but it's rather thrilling and ensures players will have
to be a specific skill to pass the goal. In general, the goals are harder
than past titles, yet much more engrossing and ultimately more fun. There's
also a few bonus missions such as playing tennis and dodging the monkey
poo hurled at you by, um, monkeys.
 All up there are
some 190 goals, but some of these won't be initially available. This is
where the fascinating Pro mode comes into play -- another feather in Tony
4's hat. When you reach a certain level - that is, beating a number of
goals - you get Pro challenges.
These are devilishly difficult,
but add even more lengevity to an already massive game. Instead of having
16 goals per level, it almost doubles that in some cases.
Suffice to say, this is one
helluva big game and it still boggles the mind as to how Neversoft came
up with all the new features. Maybe they're just geniuses - or is that
genuii?
Gameplay wise, things haven't
changed a whole lot. The basic grind and manual tricks are there for the
taking, but the addition of spine transfers, skitching and the flatland
moves combine to add a whole new level of interaction. The game is definitely
smoother on all platforms and for me it worked out better. I found busting
out 250,000-point combos much easier than in Tony 3.
Some of the guys about the
office preferred the slightly slower speed of Tony 3, but they're all
knob-shanks, so lets not worry about it (hi guys!!).
This time around you still
get cash, but you can't spend it on stat points. Instead, you increase
your chosen skaters stats by beating goals - simple as that.
 Cash can spent on
unlocking secret levels, adding really wacky outfits to the custom skater
creation toolset and also buying new skaters, cheat codes, decks, movies
and even special tricks.
Graphically, things have stepped
up a notch, with higher quality textures, smoother frame-rates, better
draw-in range and some very smooth motion capture.
Included this time around are
replays, which look stunning as the camera can be panned around. They're
also great for showing off you're super-high-scoring trickery, particularly
in slow motion.
The game is chock full of bonus
videos, cheats, secret areas, humour and did I mention it's big? Easily
the best Tony in the series, it's also the biggest, offering longevity
rarely seen in action sports titles today. The revised skate park editor
has a bigger toolset and, in general, is a big step above that found in
Tony 3.
Is there anything wrong with
the game? Fundamentally, no. The only thing that may put gamers off is
the frustration of not being able to pass goals, but hey, practice makes
perfect.
One of the best things about
the Hawk game engine, here and in the past, is that it rewards creative
players. If you keep performing the same crooked grind interspersed with
kick-flips, the scores won't be worth diddly.
With all the extra moves, tweeks
and tricks, it's amazing how creative combos can be, and you can even
add skitches into them if you're good enough.
Tony 4 is for all gamers, whether
you only buy one game a year, or fifty of them. It really is quite mind-numbing
how a series can progressively improve on what was, in the beginning,
an almost flawless formula. Even the choice of music has progressed and
suits the style gameplay better than ever before.
It's even scarier to think
if, or even when the Hawk videogaming juggernaut will end - will we be
playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 17 in 2020? I sure hope so.
ORIGINALITY 85%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 90%
PLAYABILITY 95%
ADDICTION 90%
ENJOYMENT 100%
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