🦅 C-O-M-B-O 🛹

May 18, 2020 9:34 AM

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 remastered [YouTube][Announcement Trailer] “The first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games are coming to modern platforms with a remaster called Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, publisher Activision announced Tuesday. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 will be released on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One on Sept. 4. Vicarious Visions, which remastered the first three Crash Bandicoot games for 2017’s Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, is developing the new Tony Hawk collection. The remastered collection will include the original levels, pro skaters, and tricks from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, as well as tricks from later games, like the revert, lip tricks, and wall plant.” [via: Polygon]

• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 remaster soundtrack revealed - and it's missing a few classics [Eurogamer] [Spotify]

“Activision has revealed the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 remaster soundtrack, and some of the classics are missing. Talk of the game's soundtrack emerged after Activision released an 18-track playlist on Spotify - and fans noticed some songs included in the original soundtracks were missing. Kotaku then confirmed only five songs that featured in the first two Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games won't be included in the remasters:

• Cyco Vision by Suicidal Tendencies
• Committed by Unsane
• Bring the Noise by Anthrax & Public Enemy
• B-Boy Document '99 by The High & Mighty
• Out With The Old by Alley Life

Of note, Vilified by Evenrude, and Screamer by Speedealer are in the game, but don't make the playlist because neither song is on Spotify. The music was a huge part of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater's appeal (Superman by Goldfinger! Blood Brothers by Papa Roach!), and it looks like Activision has done a good job licensing as many of the tracks as possible for inclusion in the remaster.”

• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 Remasters Releasing This Year, Won't Have Microtransactions [GameSpot]

“The games offer all the original levels, professional skaters, tricks, and modes from the classic games. Some of the new features include additional tricks, more goals and challenges, and "secrets" to uncover. The game supports local split-screen multiplayer as well as online play. The create-a-park and create-a-skater modes also return, and they have even more customization items available to players. You can share your parks online and play those created by other users. In terms of the create-a-skater customization options for clothing and more, all of the different content is available through gameplay exclusively, at least at launch. Vicarious Visions boss Jen Oneal told GameSpot that there will be no microtransactions in the Tony Hawk remasters at launch, but these could come later. "Everything that you see at launch is going to be unlocked with gameplay. We're not planning on having monetization at launch," Oneal said, adding that Vicarious put a focus on making sure players are getting a "complete package." If there is demand for additional content, Vicarious Visions might consider releasing more stuff to buy with real money down the road.”

• The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater documentary is finally moving forward [A.V. Club] [Official HD Trailer]

“But while there hasn’t been a new Tony Hawk game since 2015—and a new good entry in the series since, arguably, 2007—there is some exciting THPS news tonight, with Variety reporting that Pretending I’m A Superman, the long-in-the-works documentary about the series’ success, is finally moving forward. First launched back in 2015 (complete with crowdfunding efforts), the reportedly completed film has now secured a distribution deal. Directed by Ludvig Gür, and with Hawk heavily involved, the film explores the development of the series by designer Neversoft, its influence on the resurgence of skater culture in the early 2000s, and, hopefully, also how to get the secret tape on the Big Apple map in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, because our older brother knows where it is, but he keeps refusing to show us.”

• Tony Hawk on How His Games Changed Skateboarding [The Verge]

“The game holds up. “I’m proud that people love to keep coming back to it. I mean, I still hear, to this day, ‘I’m busting out my PS2 so I can play some THPS,’” Hawk says. “I’m really proud of that legacy and the fact that a lot of people say it turned them on to either skateboarding or a type of music that they didn’t know about or didn’t know that they would like.” He sounds like a father, which he is, but he’s also someone who’s amazed at their fortune, at the way a life can turn out. “Everything is just sort of a nice surprise these days,” he says. “I think that the main thing is that parents are encouraging their kids to skate. That didn’t happen when I was young, ever.” Skating is part of the mainstream now. The kids who grew up with Pro Skater are now into their second and third decades. Tyshawn Jones, the subject of a recent slew of magazine profiles and one of the best skaters on Earth right now, recently told The New York Times that he’d learned about the sport from video games.”

posted by Fizz (20 comments total)

God i'm so excited about this. It's not important, but it's very hilarious - there's a change.org petition to get the devs to remove "Headstrong" from the track listing. The entire call to action is just

"Trapt is wack and we aint letting an amazing game be ruined by its trapts weak ass songs"

With reasons for voting such as "I'm signing because I've always hated this stupid fucking song. Fucking anthem for 40 year old dudes wearing affliction shirts who's always appearing at your local Buffalo Wild Wings during a UFC PPV.", or "After their singers recent tangent online, I don't care to associate myself with this one hit wonder band anymore." and also "My signature has nothing to do with politics. Trapt just sucks big floppy donkey dick". the petition has nearly 15,000 signatures.
posted by FirstMateKate at 9:49 AM on May 18, 2020 [8 favorites]

I don't have the nostalgia for this game that so many others have (probably because I grew up without a PS1 or PS2). That being said, I fully recognize how influential the game was to a particular section of culture.

I doubt I'll pick this up, but I'm glad it exists for the fans who are out there. They've been salivating for a proper skating game for a long while. It'll be interesting to see if this game still holds up by today's standards. Will nostalgia be enough to keep the fans happy or will it show its age. We'll find out in September I guess.
posted by Fizz at 9:55 AM on May 18, 2020

Don’t do drugs.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 10:10 AM on May 18, 2020

For Nintendo Switch users who don't get any love in this release, Skater XL is due for release July 2020 (also on Xbox, PS, Steam). But I'm still hanging out for Skatebird. "Grind on bendy straws, kick-flip over staplers, and carve killer lines through cardboard and sticky tape parks!"
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:11 AM on May 18, 2020

I am stoked! Love that it’s going to have all the original skaters at their current ages (coincidentally around my age).
posted by rodlymight at 10:12 AM on May 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

The N64 version of THPS 1 was awesome. Just like the PS 1 version but everything loaded instantly.
posted by w0mbat at 10:21 AM on May 18, 2020

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 remaster soundtrack revealed - and it's missing a few classics

Makes me glad I ripped the soundtracks from my son's THPS 1, 2, 3, and 4 games way back in the day.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:23 AM on May 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

This might be the thing that gets me to buy a current generation console, though I want to be sure the control feels right, the 2015 game's input latency felt very off. A shame about the missing tracks, I always appreciated that a band as abrasive as Unsane had any kind of larger appeal.
posted by ndfine at 10:30 AM on May 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

I am sad about those missing songs. The original soundtrack was great. But I do already have that soundtrack and the original games. Glad they tried to keep most of them in there.
posted by MrBobaFett at 11:06 AM on May 18, 2020

I'm obviously going to play this. I wonder how I'll feel about the upping of the realism.

It's pretty relaxing to smash a cartoonish, pixelated skateboarder into a moving car over and over while attempting some insane combo. Can they somehow make it not feel awful when the sound and the graphics are telling me that someone's actual bones are actually breaking? Or do I need to change myself into someone who's OK with that in order to play?

I mean, either way's fine, I guess.
posted by gurple at 12:33 PM on May 18, 2020

I think I'm going to hold off on a purchasing decision until I find out whether the old cheat codes still work.
posted by box at 1:35 PM on May 18, 2020

In updating it for a modern age, did they add a character that says stuff like, "Oh hey you got the same name as that skateboarder!"?
posted by ckape at 2:02 PM on May 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yes please but also could someone talk to Sega and get an officially licensed (and therefore physically correct) Dreamcast layout controller? okthanks!
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:19 PM on May 18, 2020

When Tony Hawk 2 came out, we didn't have huge open-world games set in facsimiles of the real world like GTA3 yet. There were games with sci-fi and fantasy worlds to explore, but the opportunity to freely explore an entire city block or a realistic school campus modeled at that level of detail was a novel experience.

I ended up enjoying learning to do skateboard moves and tricks and using them to get around and into tricky places, but my main interest was always exploring and finding all the secrets. Before there was cruising around Liberty City in a stolen car listening to a cool soundtrack there was hanging around Venice Beach on a skateboard listening to a cool soundtrack.

But with a whole bunch of much-bigger realistic open-world games since then, it will be interesting to see if these games still have any of that same appeal. I imagine for me it will mostly be nostalgia and the weird experience of remade graphics reinforcing the effect of remembering the games in much higher fidelity than they really were and then glancing back at the originals and thinking-- no way, it never looked that primitive, did it?
posted by straight at 2:48 PM on May 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

I think I'm going to hold off on a purchasing decision until I find out whether the old cheat codes still work.

If I can't skate dressed up as Spider-Man, I ain't skatin'.
posted by straight at 2:50 PM on May 18, 2020

I was incredibly blessed by a friend who had an "extra" Xbox One and it has only played Lego games since arriving at my home. I recently connected the Wii and a Wavebird and then dug out my gamecube copy of Tony Hawk Underground because I needed to get my fix. I'll be buying this--wish it was coming out in time for Fathers Day.
posted by sleeping bear at 2:52 PM on May 18, 2020

My friends first job after graduating Digipen was programming the volumetric grass in THPS 2x (for the X-Box). When you're just a young kid from the midwest and pursuing your passion and then getting to fulfill it on one of the greatest games of all time as your first game (admittedly it was the port, but ya know ;))

Also - I think the first 3 games were awesome. Did they even make anymore? I stopped following after 3.
posted by symbioid at 6:04 PM on May 18, 2020

Like most games of the era, THPS looks far worse than it really was when displayed on a modern TV or monitor. Many effects that looked pretty decent on a good CRT simply don't work on natively progressive scan displays. Also, the PS1 was a piece of junk. It had most of the good games, though. Sadly, I never got to play THPS on Dreamcast, though I'm told it looked quite a bit better.

IIRC, THPS2 was pretty much THPS but bigger and with manuals so you could keep your combo going. THPS3 had physics changes that were not very good. Not that the physics were ever great, mind, but if it's going to remain not great at least keep it the same not great we're used to, thanks. There wasn't another decent skateboard game until Skate came out for the PS3 and 360 because the TH series turned into a bunch of "bucket" games where the developer throws a bunch of features into the bucket because they sound good, but end up totally lacking any kind of cohesion.

I've got a lot of nice memories of THPS, but I'm not paying $40 for a remaster that doesn't even have the original soundtrack. I may end up buying it on sale depending on what's missing. It would be nice to be able to play on PC without any of the emulation hassles.
posted by wierdo at 6:17 PM on May 18, 2020

I played thps 2 on an emulator on my phone last year. It was awesome. There were many looks of envy from fellow train riders.

(Which, PSA: there's a crazy amount of stuff that runs on a decent android phone with an emulator...)
posted by kaibutsu at 11:01 PM on May 18, 2020

They released PC ports of Tony Hawk 2, 3, and 4 (at least). No emulator required.
posted by straight at 11:11 PM on May 18, 2020