I wasn’t a skateboarder growing up; I could never manage to actually stay on a board long enough to do more than cruise a few short feet. While my friends were trying out ollies and kickflips at the local park, I was following along on roller blades to keep up. However, I could more than match them when playing the various Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games together. My friends and I had hours of fun competing to see who could get the highest scores or who could pull off the craziest combos that nobody could ever do in real life. When the remastered version of the first two games was announced, I was therefore hit by a huge wave of nostalgia and was eager to pick it up. I’ve found this to be a tricky situation because sometimes a favorite old game gets the HD treatment and doesn’t quite manage to live up to the memory. However, this one most certainly does.
From the first run in the warehouse level, all the old feels came back. The various objectives to complete for each course instantly pulled me in and it was a ton of fun not only to complete them, but also to try and see how I could complete them with the best combo or the highest score. I had a blast creating a custom skater and using the hidden skill points I found to boost my stats so that I could progressively perform better run by run as I moved from one venue to the next. All the nostalgia gets a major boost from much of the original soundtrack, which also makes a return. In some ways, it felt totally surreal to be immersed pulling combos and snagging collectibles in these stages, listening to those songs. It was really like re-living an old memory.
Along with all the nostalgic goodness of course come a few new additions. There are newer music tracks and newer skaters from the current generation of professionals. These all blend seamlessly into the original elements of Pro Skater 1 and 2, as well as my fond remembrances of going back and forth between playing the video games and hanging out in the skate park with my friends. The biggest difference between my memories of the original games and this new remake is that I recall being really good back in the day… I this one proved to be much more difficult than I remembered. That’s obviously on me and not the game, though. Whether you played the original Tony Hawk games or not, or maybe you’re just a fan of skating, I absolutely suggest giving this one a shot because it’s a classic trick that still lands well today.
