Product Description
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Tony Hawk has performed two legendary feats during his
skateboarding career. In 1999, he pulled off the first
900--that's 2-1/2 rotations in midair--in skateboarding
competition history. Around the same time, he contributed
hundreds of motion-captured moves for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater,
originally released on the Sony PlayStation. The realism and
compulsive fun of the game left virtual skaters blurry-eyed from
marathon sessions, and now Nintendo 64 fans get to jump aboard
and discover what the hype's all about.
Skating as the legendary gravity defier Tony Hawk or nine other
pros, players work their way up the ranks in search of success.
So what does it take to be the best? For starters, an
encyclopedic memory of tricks--flips, grinds, slides, inverts,
airs, grabs, kick-flips, and literally hundreds of other moves
and combinations. Success also depends on taking full advantage
of the ramps, obstacles, secret areas, half pipes, and other
environmental toys scattered around the nine courses.
One or two players (in split-screen mode) race, rack up trick
points, or skate through unique game variations on a variety of
courses. And tunes belted out by the likes of Goldfinger, Dead
Kennedys, and Primus keep skaters entertained as they attempt a
900 of their own. --Eric Twelker
Review
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Not content with the runaway success of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
on the PlayStation, Activision moved quickly and lined up
developers for ports to the Dreamcast and the Nintendo 64. The
Nintendo 64 port, handled by Edge of Reality, mimics the
PlayStation version just about as well as it possibly can, and
the resulting game is just as amazing as it was when it appeared
on the PlayStation last September. The game takes a more
arcadelike approach to the world of skating. The object of the
game's career mode is to collect videotapes, much in the same way
Mario collects stars. With the exception of the three competition
stages, the point of each level is to collect five videotapes.
You can enter each stage as often as you want, but you can only
skate around the stage for two minutes before having to start the
stage over. You receive two of these tapes when you achieve
certain scores within your two-minute limit. You pick up a third
tape by collecting letters scattered around the level, eventually
spelling the word "skate." You score another tape by destroying
five objects in a level. These objects change on each level and
range from anti-skateboarding signs to cars. The fifth
tape is hidden somewhere on the level, and you must figure out
how to get to it. You start career mode with only one level
. As you pick up tapes, you'll unlock new levels and new
skateboards, raising your skater's stats. The game features ten
real-life pro skaters, and they have been divided by style into
two groups: vert skaters and street skaters, who have slightly
different tricks. Beyond that, there are a few subtle timing
differences between the skaters, and each skater has three
special tricks that can only be performed while your special
meter is full. The special tricks include the 540 Board Varial,
back flips, front flips, the 360 Shove It Rewind, Christ Air, and
the Judo Madonna. Each of these tricks will bring in a higher
score than most normal moves, if done correctly. Some of them can
even be included in combos. The controls are extremely easy to
pick up and are very precise. Aside from the career mode, there's
also free skating, which lets you take a little more time
examining a level and mastering your tricks. Single-session mode
is a score competition, where you pick a level and try to get as
many points as possible in two minutes. The two-player mode works
on a vertical split screen and has three different modes.
Graffiti mode causes certain parts of the level to change to your
color when you do tricks on them. Your nent must then do a
better trick on that part of the level to change it to his color.
The person with the most colored pieces at the end of two minutes
wins. Trick attack is a simple score battle. Horse is similar to
the basketball game on which it is based. Player one has ten
seconds to do the best trick he can do. Player two must match or
beat that trick to avoid getting a letter. The first person to
get all five letters (spelling horse) loses. Career mode doesn't
take a whole lot of time to complete once you've gotten familiar
with all the levels, but even after completing the game with all
the skaters, you'll still want to go back and do some free
skating. It's one of those games that will keep you coming back
long after you've mastered it. The level design is part of what
gives the game such longevity. The large levels have lots of
extravagant areas, all ready for tons of combos, while the
smaller levels are tightly packed with rails, ramps, and s.
The soundtrack is filled with songs by bands like the Dead
Kennedys, Goldfinger, and Primus. Unlike the PlayStation version,
which contained entire songs, the soundtrack on the N64 is
reduced. The Primus song no longer has lyrics, and every song
loops fairly often. I wasn't a huge fan of the soundtrack, but
that's something better left to your personal taste in music. The
sound effects are really outstanding. Rails clink when you jump
off them, sidewalks have different textures than the street, and
different ramp materials make different noises. The game's
graphics are really good, but there's an awful lot of pop-up in
outdoor areas, like the San Francisco level. Regardless of that,
the game runs at an excellent pace, and the camera never gets in
your way. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is a game for skaters and
nonskaters alike. Some may be initially turned off by the
occasionally questionable physics, but this little slice of
unreality brings a lot of gameplay fun along with it. It would
have been nice to see some more variety in the game's tricks, but
as it stands, THPS is an outstanding game and an excellent port
of the PlayStation original, and it's a worthy addition to
anyone's collection.--Jeff Gerstmann--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot
Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any
form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is
prohibited. -- GameSpot Review