Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 _TOP_

Another new feature is the online component. When loading up the game, you are placed in a world with other skaters, whom you can ignore if you wish, or play missions and compete in events with them at any time. Along with this, Create A Park mode returns with all new features so you can design and share creations with friends online. The king of the vert ramp returns in this revival of the blockbuster THPS skateboarding franchise.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

Fixed many bugs and glitches in the game and across the game's levels, added "double tap to slam," added quickturn, flipped the balance meter, added 2 new levels, added new playable skaters, updated visuals and some Pro Skater's sponsors. The overall patch size is 7.8GB.

When choosing one of the approximately ten skaters, you will be able to upgrade them (like in the originals) in their Speed, Ollie, Manual, Grind, Vert, Spin, Special, and Lip Tricks categories. A really nice touch this time around is the ability to relocate any of the skill points earned to whichever categories. So if you're stuck on a mission that requires more speed, you can go back and remove any allocated points you've placed in other areas to put into Speed, etc. It's a very welcome feature and one that this reviewer found himself doing several times.

Then there are the actual missions, which you can either trigger by approaching them on the map or by pulling up with a press of the touchpad. Missions consist of your classic two-minute high score runs, earning the highest combo, completing a string of tricks in a specified line, etc. You can acquire three stars per mission (AM, Pro, and Sick score), with the top tiers netting you more XP. This can then be used to level up, which will earn you more skill points to assign to your skater, as well as new customisation items. Every level has 10 main missions, and upon completing those, you will unlock five additional Pro missions. These will test even the most devout fan.

Having said that, it is cool seeing 19 other skaters in the same level with you. Now there may not be any actual interactions for you to partake in, but most people are just there to skate around. You can hit into the other skaters, but the odd thing is that there's minimal outcome when you smash into someone. The screen will notify who hit who, but both players will be free to go about like nothing happened. No one falls off their board from the collision.

Trick Attack is your old-school, two-minute run for who can get the highest score, and will have fans settling scores among each other. King of the Hill has one player maintaining a crown and is the only player who can score points, while opponents can shoot objects at the crowned player to take the crown and score some points themselves. Death Match is a throwback to Tony Hawk's Underground 2's Firefight mode, where players shoot fireballs at each other. Big Head is about pulling off tricks as best as possible to reduce your skater's constantly inflating head from exploding. And finally, Combo Mambo is essentially who can pull off the biggest combo. The modes here are all entertaining, but two iconic multiplayer modes that are missing are Graffiti and Horse, and their absence is noticed. Also, the lack of any split-screen multiplayer is an absolute shame.

Now visually, yes, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 is not a great looking game. It does look like an early PlayStation 3 title, and that's a bit unacceptable at this stage of the current generation. The cel-shaded art style does cover up some of the less appealing aspects as shown off in early builds, but it's still not exactly easy on the eyes. The animations for bailing and the physics are quite wonky, too, but on the upside this will definitely lead to some chuckling. The glitches on the other hand are really out of hand. When bailing, you'll see your skater go through quarter-pipes, walls, fly up 10 stories in the air, sink through the world, etc. There's a barrage of visual glitches that are really comical in all honesty.

@Johnnycide Yes, post launch patches would most definitely (hopefully) bring the game up to speed. Activision was quick to state that they're working with Robomodo to get patches out that fix up many of the issues (while also adding 2 new levels and 5 more skaters for free). If that comes to fruition, then the game will definitely be worth picking up for sure! And who knows, it may have a price drop by then as well.

The skaters also felt hard to control for some reason. I don't remember it being that hard in the last TH game I played (I think Underground 2 on Xbox). It was almost as if they made turning too slow and the character too fast? I can't put my finger on it, but it didn't feel right.

At times Tony Hawk 5 easily reminds me why I played so much of the series when it debuted. Tricks effortlessly fly off my fingertips as I build crazy combos on the back of whatever surface I can find. I don't know how much skating tricks have evolved in the real-life scene since the series' heyday, but you won't find yourself at a loss for self-expression even though skaters' trick sets are locked to that particular person.

THPS5 looks familiar, but you know something is definitely off about it. The basic framework is the same as its predecessors: you skate around sizable levels, comboing tricks and completing a variety of missions. Perhaps you're just thrown off by the half-baked cel-shading effects on the skaters, you think to yourself; anyone would be taken aback by dead-eyed models who appear to be refugees from the previous console generation. Maybe you're getting bad vibes from the inexplicable addition to the unadjustable control scheme, which lets you push forward with the right trigger and slow to a stop with the left trigger as if your skater was a bipedal car (thankfully, movement with the D-Pad still functions just fine). There's also the new slam move, a downward plunge which feels unnecessary at best and will often ruin your combos at worst. But no, the letdowns are only just beginning. Once you start to play in earnest, you'll discover the lead paint in this bootleg toy: crippling online connectivity.

If there's any redeeming quality to be found in THPS5, it's the skaters themselves. Alongside the Birdman himself and skateboarding mainstays like Andrew Reynolds and Chris Cole, there's a nice selection of young up-and-comers who could very well become your new favorites. The inclusion of Lil Wayne is nonsensical but appreciated, and you'll even find some secret cameos by the cartoony likes of Octodad and Graham from the new King's Quest. Unfortunately, everyone shares the same Special moves, making it so that the character choices feel homogenous.

I didn't even encounter the worst bugs that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 has to offer, with bodies ragdolling for no reason and skaters plummeting through the level geometry. It almost makes me feel left out: instead of glitches that could at least make me laugh, all I got were stuttery camera shakes, constant frame drops, and seemingly glitched railings that would suddenly pop me out of a grind and terminate my combos for no reason.

In terms of potential stumbling blocks for children, Tony Hawks can be a little bit tricky for kids to pick up and play, due to the reaction speed involved (you'll need to be very quick to pull off some tricks), and the fine motor controls required to steer your skater around the levels without coming a cropper. The other big issue, as is often the case with many games, is one of reading - while most missions are fairly self-explanatory, knowing what to do for some of the quirkier ones could be an issue for the non-reader. It's worth noting too that the way Pro Skater 5's menus are arranged is a little bit strange, and has it's routes in the game's more online multiplayer-centric design. When choosing a level to play, it defaults to trying to set up an online game (with up to 20 people), but a simple press of the triangle button (on the Playstation 3/4 - other platforms vary) lets you play on your own.

The game itself is actually pretty non-eventful in terms of mature content - there's no blood and guts, sex scenes or bad language whatsoever. The only thing even remotely violent is when your skater falls off their skateboard with an 'oof', before climbing straight back on again. The only mature content beyond that is the odd drug reference/slightly suggestive lyrics, which talk of getting high on weed and whores standing on corners.

Obviously, Activision can only use Tony Hawk's name in the title for their skateboarding game franchise thanks to a licensing deal between the game publisher and the legendary skater. According to a press release from 2002, Activision and Tony Hawk renewed the licensing deal through 2015. When Motherboard asked whether the licensing deal between Tony Hawk and Activision was still due to expire after 2015, a spokesperson for the game simply directed us at the same press release from 2002. 041b061a72