Our review of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 (PS5/Steam Deck), developed by Iron Galaxy (original PS2 releases by Neversoft). Available now for PS4/5, Xbox X/S, Xbox One, Switch/2, and Windows/Steam. Reviewed on PS5 and Steam Deck.
WHAT IS IT?
A beautifully produced remake of two of the greatest skateboarding games of all time.
IS IT GOOD?
It’s fantastic, but it’s not quite the same game(s) you remember.
WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?
Night Thrasher. Bart Simpson.
COOL BOARDERS
It took me all of five minutes to unlock “Canada”, the beloved Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 level inspired by the real-world Canada Olympic Park in Calgary.
This isn’t so much a flex, as it is a testament to THPS 3 + 4’s ability to ease me right back into the game I remember from nearly a quarter-century ago, now tidied up for modern consoles and high-definition screens.
The original THPS3 (released in 2001) is a masterpiece, one of the all-time great PS2 games. Back in an era when we had oh-so-much more free time, THPS3 was my go-to for afterschool gaming sessions, whiling away the hours perfecting combos, hunting down secret areas, unlocking hidden characters. When THPS4 arrived a year later, with its intriguing new open-world format – instead of a timer, players were free to roam levels, tackling challenges as they saw fit – I was just as hooked.
For a game designed to be played in two-minute bursts, I probably spent more time on the two Tony Hawk’ses than nearly any other PlayStation 2 game save, perhaps, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It’s not much of an understatement to say that the remake of these two games feels like a straight injection of nostalgia into my veins, perfectly calibrated to suck me back in all over again.
And, in large part, it succeeds. There are some odd changes, and some rather more explicable ones (blame Tony Hawk himself for the new soundtrack), but it’s still an absolute blast, even if it’s not quite the blast from the past you might be expecting.
SKATE
THPS 3 + 4 is easily one of the coolest games. That was true twenty-odd years ago, and it’s true again today. There’s nothing quite like taking a favourite skater, working up a massive combo, then absolutely blowing up the High Score tables on one of your favourite levels – of which THPS3 and THPS4 are both blessed with an overabundance.
Over in THPS3, the first game most players will probably tackle in this dual collection, highlights include the aforementioned Canada, the fabled Foundry, the endgame Cruise Ship, and several brilliantly imagined cityscapes to play through, including Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, and Los Angeles. In THPS4, highlight levels (sure to bring a tear to many a nostalgic eye) include more cities – London, San Francisco – as well as nifty themed areas such as Alcatraz and “College” (a sly evolution of the original “School” and “School II” from the PS1 THPS 1 and 2, also recently remade).
There are also, happily, three brand-new levels, bespoke for this package, including the brilliantly designed Waterpark with its rusty, half-dried-out amusements; the gleefully entertaining (and exceedingly grind-friendly) Movie Studio; and a hilariously over-the-top Pinball-themed area.
TRICKY
What’s changed in THPS 3 + 4 is worth parsing, far more so than for the previous THPS 1 + 2 remake.
For the good, gameplay has been lightly cleaned up, granting certain abilities – like the wall plant from Tony Hawk’s Underground – not present in the original releases. Graphics have been completely redone, this being a remake as opposed to remaster. That means big beautiful levels, lovingly rendered in high-def graphics. (We’re partial to the fully reimagined shark attack from the San Francisco stage.) Also nice is the vastly expanded roster, which includes Hawk’s now-adult son Riley Hawk, who was nine years old when THPS3 debuted, as well as a more diverse selection of male and female skaters.
For ill, Iron Galaxy has rather controversially clipped the wings on THPS4, removing two levels – the (frankly awesome) Carnival and (just okay) Chicago – and making some utterly bizarre changes, like removing all the animals(!) from the “Zoo” stage in THPS4, which has also lost its awesome secret aquarium. Far worse is the fact that THPS4 no long has its original open world structure, where you were free to roam and complete challenges at your own tempo; instead, you’re restricted to the same timer-based structure as its three predecessors. This also means some challenges have been rejigged to fit that format.
Still, it’s important to note that, buried amongst the sea of difficulty modifiers in THPS 3 + 4, the game now lets you manually adjust the timer to allow for play sessions of as long as sixty minutes. This is a fantastic change, greatly reducing the anxiety of completing certain challenges in both games (like, say, impressing all the skaters chilling in the Canada stage), while also alleviating some of the frustration from this game’s abandonment of the THPS4 open world. That said, the extended timer also fundamentally violates some of Tony Hawk’s baked-in rules, since you can now easily fulfil the tougher “Pro Score” and “Sick Score” challenges by simply giving yourself an hour to rack up the required points.
But the greatest disappointment in the whole package? The incredible roster of secret skaters is no longer present in either game: no Wolverine or Darth Maul (both in the original THPS3); no Jango Fett (THPS4) – all fallen victim of shifting corporate synergies.
YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME
The changes to the soundtrack are a mixed bag, though will likely only be really noticeable to the diehards. The most important tunes – Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades”, Bodyjar’s “Not the Same”, Run-DMC’s “My Adidas” – are here, but the vast majority of songs have been either removed or swapped out for a different song by the same artist. Of sixty-nine total songs across the two original PS2 games, only ten have survived the transition to modern consoles, Tony Hawk personally overseeing a redone soundtrack featuring the likes of Run the Jewels, Lupe Fiasco, and De La Soul.
As I said, these changes are noticeable only to the extent you can remember these games. Not being able to send Alberta’s own Wolverine careening around a Calgary skatepark is, frankly, bullshit. Not being able to hear precisely the same Sex Pistols song? That’s something we can live with.
Overall, players will be happy with how much fun this game is, how good it looks, how well it plays, but there’s no question that many will come away disappointed about some fairly significant changes – with no explanations forthcoming, either.
On a positive note, the new levels – Waterpark and Pinball in particular – are so good that if Iron Galaxy were to announce a brand-new Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater “5” tomorrow (conveniently disregarding the past twenty-three years, Crash Bandicoot-style), I’m all for it.
***
Final score: 9/10 sick combos.
Visit the official website for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 here.
