My review of the 2020, large-publisher-owned-studio, high-profile intellectual property, ‘Triple-A’ game ‘Tony Hawk’s™ Pro Skater™ 1 + 2’ for PS4 (THPS 1+2) must answer to five points:
- How well are the old games preserved in the new game?
- How good of a game is THPS 1+2?
- How has it evolved?
- Is it well-made?
- Is it sick?
Evolution
I call the growing changes that accumulate as a game is remade again and again ‘evolution’.
As works are transcribed again and again the message/content/work inevitably evolves. Things are added and removed from the work both at the whim of the uncoordinated individuals who carry, translate, write, and rewrite the message but also as the medium of the message changes.
In the ecological or biological sense, evolution is the phenomena whereby living organisms which are more effectively adapted tend to survive and reproduce more prodigiously than poorly adapted living organisms.
In ‘The Selfish Gene‘, Richard Dawkins famously likened the genes constituting living organisms to ‘memes’ as cultural constituents that can be more or less adept at survival (read: continued existence).
In this sense cultural memes can evolve. Much like the gene-pool we might reconsider artworks as parts of the meme-pool that are more or less ‘fit’ which can mutate and be passed along somehow. Memes can recombine and otherwise mutate to produce fresh memes.
Whether a gene or meme is more or less fit doesn’t mean more or less ‘good’; only that it tends contribute more or less to ongoing existence.
As fun, addictive, cultural entities games are certainly one form of meme. In this sense the ‘Tony Hawk’s‘ franchise is a ‘meme’. Has THPS changed out of its original form? Big time.
Differences
Since the release of the original games in 1999-2000 the THPS franchise evolved dramatically; there are a ton of differences when comparing the new release with the originals.
Playing the new game, I found obvious differences in input, art, rules and design. To keep it short I’ll quickly paraphrase my observations although a fuller more ‘scientific’ approach might describe how features of the games evolved from THPS 1 into THPS 2 and in subsequent titles that included the content of each of these games – ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2x’ (2001) & Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD (2012) – and finally Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2.
- THPS 1+2 adds trick mechanics from later games in the franchise (especially reverts, flatland tricks, and ‘wallplants’)
- New ‘challenges’ exist incentivizing new features such as online play
- Complex menu navigation added in THPS 1+2 to access and configure features and challenges
- Various collectibles changed (e.g. removed THPS 2 cash; added various collectibles)
- Changes in level layouts and visual hierarchy
- Much higher fidelity artwork and newly curated music
Per the above, we are clearly not meant to appreciate THPS 1+2 as an exact-reproduction of the first two games of the series, in spite of the title. This confuses me. I could easily understand and enjoy an exact-reproduction. The new game ‘THPS 1+2’ exists in 2020 and should be judged as a game amongst other 2020 games and as an evolved, spiritual successor to the first two games in the THPS series.
It would be interesting to hear from the game designers who were actually responsible for making the game – to know what they aiming at when they were making it. Was it clear to them whether they intended to make something new or reproduce something old?
Conclusions
If you are too young to have played THPS or THPS2 when originally released there is almost no reason to get this specific ‘Tony Hawk’s‘ game – wait until Activision releases an new and fully realized skating game – I suspect this will happen soon. Otherwise, if you need a nostalgic hit and lost your original Play Station one copy this release offers a few hours of that.
I want to be clear though – THPS 1+2 has lots of great work in it. As an occasional game developer I can see that clear as day. The well honed controls, the game looks and sounds testify that. This game’s raison d’etre is flawed and the problem is historical.
If this game had been released at any time from when Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 came out it would have simply been the greatest and best of them. Unfortunately, Activision released it 19 years too late. This game lacks evolutionary fitness: it is a resurrected dinosaur from AD 1999, beautiful to look at but unfit to chase any living prey or flee from any living predator.
Blue Sky Design?
THPS 1+2 is reasonably good but it isn’t ambitious enough. Playing the original THPS 1 or THPS 2 is still a fun experience, but the new title won’t win new players or carry old fans very far. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since 1999: level design, art, and gameplay has changed a lot and the levels in this game simply aren’t designed with all of this in mind.
This aspect is the core of what holds the game back. If you go in as I did looking for the original two games then the subtle differences in the play of each map are annoying. If you go in fresh the levels seem oddly underwhelming.
Why did the texture and lighting artists had a free-hand to beautifully recreate the worlds and redesign the atmosphere but the changes to the level design is so much more conservative?
In my playthroughs I used new combo mechanics (especially reverts) that aren’t in the two original titles because I was familiar with the games in which they were introduced and because it seemed near impossible to accomplish the new high-score threshold achievements (and contests) without them. But all the while I was playing levels that Neversoft created in 1999 to be played with very different mechanics.
What could THPS 1+2 have been? The level design and mechanics are mismatched; this game could have been made better by including levels that were clear allusions to the original level set without trying to be exact reproductions.
Why reproduce these levels at all? In its ‘Philadelphia’ level THPS 2 reproduced a famous skate spot as a centerpiece – the ‘LOVE’ fountain – which was demolished around 2016. Likewise, the THPS 2 ‘Venice’ level depicts a famous skate spot in Venice Beach California known as ‘The Pit’ that was demolished in the year 2000.
By taking the mechanics, which by the way are still very fun, and building levels that use them to their full advantage this game could have been a rich environment to play up allusions to the first two games and the world of 1999 while coming into its own.
All of that said, if Activision wanted to test the water to see if it was time to start re-investing in the THPS franchise this might be the game to release. Exact ports (dated graphics and all) of the original THPS 1 and THPS 2 might have been slightly cheaper to recreate, but (and perhaps this explains it all) they would have lacked networked multiplayer as the original games were released on consoles and in a world without ubiquitous internet connection.
In my previous article detailing some of my thoughts on ‘remakes’ and the history of these games I laid out some notes about the timing of the first release coinciding well with the resurgence of skateboarding in the late 1990’s. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic there were no 2020 Olympic games but in 2021, skateboarding will join the Summer Olympic games. It feels like now might be a very good time indeed to make some skateboarding games.
I hope that Tony Hawk’s™ Pro Skater™ 1 + 2 represents an evolutionary new dawn for the franchise and more is on the way.