Despite strong sales of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, it seemed like a sequel was never going to happen. After all, Vicarious Visions’ reward for treating the iconic Tony Hawk’s games was to be absorbed into Blizzard where they now act as a support team under a different name. But then a miracle! Although the original developers had been disbanded, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 was happening. Here we are, a full five years after the first remake. Was it worth the wait?
For Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, Iron Galaxy was handed the board and told to get on with it. And in a bid to make this second collection their own, Iron Galaxy has made some…choices. Admittedly, it was always going to be a tough task attempting to remake two games when one of them is structurally so different, so perhaps Iron Galaxy was up against it from the start. And then there was the problem that Vicarious Visions had already established the template in the first remake package, a template that Iron Galaxy deviates from.
Available On: Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PS4, PS5, PC, Switch, Switch 2
Reviewed On: PS5, PC
Developed By: Iron Galaxy
Published By: ActivisionReview code provided for review purposes.
The intro certainly grabs the old dangling nostalgia balls and gives them a good tug thanks to Motorhead’s Ace of Spades once again blasting from the speakers. I admit that my own connection to the series is far more rooted in the first two games, and then later in Underground and American Wasteland. I played a fair bit of Pro Skater 3, and less of Pro Skater 4. Even so, hearing Ace of Spades again while rolling into Foundry gave my heart a little jolt.
Broadly speaking, this release is more of what we got in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, and for that, I’m eternally grateful because the gameplay is stupendously entertaining. The sequel collects both Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 (2001) and Tony Hawk’s pro Skater 4 (2002) and once again rebuilds them both in Unreal Engine 5. That means, while the level layouts are largely identical, every location now boasts beautiful lighting and heaps of new details.
Most importantly, the actual skating has barely been touched, and that means it’s fucking excellent. Stringing together grinds, grabs, manuals, reverts, transfers, and flip tricks is sublimely satisfying, a feeling offset by the agony of screwing up an epic combo worth potentially millions of points because you just had to go and try to fit in that extra trick, didn’t you?
Once again, the career mode is exactly what you’d expect: a series of levels, each boasting goals you need to complete to unlock the next area. Collect the S-K-A-T-E letters, beat the high scores, do specific tricks, find the hidden tapes and so on. All of these goals are crammed into a 2-minute time limit, although, of course, completed goals stay completed from run to run.
Really, the Pro Skater 3 section is pretty much flawless. It’s when we get to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 that things get more complicated. You see, the first three Pro Skater games were all built on the same formula – 2-minute runs through packed levels. Pro Skater 4 decided to go goofy for its career, though, bailing the 2-minute runs for bigger, open levels with no time limit and skaters standing around who doled out challenges, like racing a shopping cart down Alcatraz. It was a huge departure for the series, but is also what made Pro Skater 4 so distinct. It heralded the arrival of a whole new era of Tony Hawk games.
For the remake, that distinctiveness has been abandoned in favour of a more cohesive experience. Iron Galaxy have applied the 2-minute timer to the Pro Skater 4 levels and stripped out the quest-givers, replacing them with the list of goals just like you see in the first three games. Some of the zanier stuff from Pro Skater 4 can still be found in the new Pro Goals, which unlock after you complete all the regular goals. These Pro Goals also apply to the Pro Skater 3 levels, adding a chunk of new challenges. But there’s no getting around the fact that a lot Pro Skater 4’s uniqueness has been lost by making it fit in more with the original trilogy. Does it make for a more cohesive package? Sure. It now feels like one big campaign. Was it worth it, though? No.
To Iron Galaxy’s credit, though, they have included an option to extend the time limit to 10 minutes or even to a full hour. There’s no penalty for doing it, either, and even as a veteran of the series, I ended up ditching the 2-minute limit. Of course, this doesn’t fully restore what was lost in Pro Skater 4, but it helps a little. I’d love it if Pro Skater 1+2 could have this feature added in.
And it has to be said that while I don’t agree with the decision to decimate Pro Skater 4’s structure, Iron Galaxy does at least do a decent job at transplanting the Pro Skater 1, 2 and 3 formula into the levels. Well, as decent a job as they could possibly do given the levels were never built to handle it. You can definately feel it as you skate around, a sense that the 2-minute timer is too restrictive for the bigger levels. In was in Pro Skater 4 that I found myself using the extended timer before swapping to it entirely.
Some of the missing goals actually make an appearance in the Pro Goals, which only unlock once you’ve managed to beat every other goal in the game. Manage to beat all those, and you get access to the Solo Tours for each skater as well. On top of that, there are hundreds of challenges to complete if you fancy chasing down the Platinum Trophy or 100% the game. It won’t be quite as much of a grind as Pro Skater 1+2, but it’ll still be quite the arduous task.
But even though some of the goals do appear later, a lot of them don’t, and most of them are the zanier, weirder stuff. Playing tennis with your skateboard? Yeah, that’s gone. The skater-specific stuff like racing a trolley down Alcatraz as Bam Margera? Gone as well.
Three brand-new levels designed by Iron Galaxy have been added into the game with mixed results. Waterpark is, by far, the best of the bunch. It sticks you into an abandoned waterpark full of slides to play around on. It’s a good-sized level, fits the 2-minute template nicely and has a lot of potentially awesome lines that players far more talented than I will undoubtedly shred into oblivion.
Pinball is the most visually impressive of the three new levels, complete with a giant Tony Hawk looming over the whole place. It’s a crazy land of colour and weirdness, and has a few neat pinball mechanics as well that help separate it from the rest of the levels on offer, like big boost pads and a massive metal ball that will occasionally fuck up your day. But as visually striking as it is, I didn’t find it great for the gameplay. I struggled to get a good flow going, but that might just be me, and being randomly murdered by a death-sphere that comes out of nowhere isn’t fun.
Film Studio is probably the weakest of the bunch, a competition level that includes a pile of nods to various movies. But the setup feels too tight and compact to be enjoyable. I struggled to find enjoyable lines through the level, constantly smacking off of walls or finding myself hemmed in instead of being able to flow nicely into something else.
These three new levels come at the cost of two original levels. The biggest absence is Carnival, an unlockable level in Pro Skater 4 featuring roller coasters and other rides to mess around on. Chicago is the other one, a level that was taken directly from Matt Hoffman’s Pro BMX and added into Pro Skater 4. I’ll be honest, Chicago being missing in action doesn’t bother me, purely because it was a crap level anyway. However, it still feels weird not to include it since it was in the original game alongside Carnival. They better not release them as paid DLC later on.
Other changes feel odd, or simply not needed, while a couple are fine or even an improvement. For example, Zoo is now a competition level and all the animals have been moved out, so you can’t get eaten by a lion anymore, skitch behind an elephant or dodge monkey poop being hurled by irate primates. And the hidden aquarium section is also gone, since you can’t cause a stampede anymore. Although Zoo was never the best Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater level to skate around, the changes that Iron Galaxy have made strip everything that made it interesting. It’s now a forgettable location.
Meanwhile, the criminal’s getaway car in London has become a rogue self-driving car, which is honestly a pretty funny change. Suburbia has a new Halloween theme, too, which is an excellent change which not only gives the level some extra visual flair but ties in nicely with the creepy-looking house on the corner and the objective to smash pumpkins. And quite a few levels have had their time of day swapped from broad daylight to night, mostly so the remake’s lighting can add some extra depth.
One change I do appreciate is that the stat points you can find in every level apply to every skater in the roster. It speeds up progression, and stops the game from feeling overly slow when you decide to swap skaters and have to get used to their low stats again.
There are a massive number of other changes, too. Most are purely graphical, but there are other alterations too numerous to talk about here. Instead, I’d highly recommend checking out this Youtube video which goes into great detail.
What I will say, is Iron Galaxy really seems to have gone crazy on sanitising the games. The original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skaters were littered with crass humour, whether it was Airport’s bomb scanning devices and obsession with full cavity searches, or the many, many, maaaaaaaaaany sexual jokes found across all the levels. All those bikini-clad women enjoying the pool on Cruise Ship? Gone. But there were also just heaps of daft little jokes to find that were completely inoffensive, and even those have been scrubbed.
The music selection is another… interesting design choice. While THPS1+2 kept 18 of the original 25 tracks, THPS3+4 has only 10 of the original 55 bangers. Most of the 45 other songs are from the same artists, though, and that’s apparently because of Tony Hawk himself, who said, “It was my choice to pick some different songs by the same artists featured in THPS3+4 OST. I’m hoping that discovery is half the fun, and a big reason that these soundtracks resonated in the first place”.
I understand his thought process, and partially agree with it. Kind of. Because there’s also a second part of my brain that ones to smack him with a skateboard for defiling the amazing soundtrack of the two games. In the end, I’m not quire sure how I feel. It’s still a killer collection of tunes and, much like I did back in the day, I’ve discovered a few new tracks that have been added straight onto my playlist. Those missing tracks, though, leave a smidgen of longing in my heart.
As for the roster of skaters looking to put shoes to grip tape, pretty much everyone has made the cut, including Bam Margera. Plus, the new crew introduced in Tony Haw’s Pro Skater 1+2 have ollied over as well, so that’s cool.
In terms of missing skaters, the unlockable Star Wars characters such as Darth Maul are gone, probably because licensing them would cost too much. Former pornstar Jenna Jameson (Daisy) is absent, too. Also MIA is Private Carrera, presumably due to the longstanding rumour that she is based on pornstar Asia Carrera. But the most confusing absence is Mike Vallely who appeared in Pro Skater 4 onwards.
And finally, the multiplayer portion of the game requires an Activision account this time, whereas Pro Skater 1+2 did not. It’s not a massive problem, sure, but it’s a problem that didn’t need to exist. Putting that aside, the multiplayer is heaps of fun.
In Conclusion…
Your enjoyment of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 is going to depend heavily upon how much you love Pro Skater 4. If the 4th entry in the series was a massive part of your childhood, and you were excited to see it remastered and playable on modern hardware, you’re probably going to be pissed off. This isn’t Pro Skater 4, it’s more like Pro Skater 3 with a Pro Skater 4 inspired level-pack attached to it.
If, like me, you maybe aren’t that attached to Pro Skater 4 or can view this package as something like an expanded version of Pro Skater 3, then it’s an absolute blast. The refined Tony Hawk gameplay we saw in 1+2 is still phenomenally fun, a masterpiece of arcadey goodness.
In other words, Pro Skater 3+4 is a great game on its own merits, but a far worse remake than 1+2 was. Perhaps that’s harsh since a remake is allowed to make changes, but these changes feel like the wrong ones.
