A great game that captures the essence of the series and is a must-buy for anyone with a console that plays it.
The graphics in this game are pretty great, especially for this era. Complete with all of the visual effects and crashing animations, not to mention the actual thinking behind each of the locales, it's a king-size package of eye candy. And it's also not bland in the least. The developers threw in water, urban cities, plants, the whole deal. One of the greatest irritants a well-made game can have is the graphical style getting boring and unappealing after awhile. (Killzone, anyone?)
The level design is fantastic! It ranges from a molten metal foundry, to the frozen depths of our northern brethren, Canada. Throw in an airport, a cruise ship, and modern Tokyo complete with flashing lights everywhere, and you will never find a lack of variety in this game. It's not just looks, either. In one part in the cruise ship level, you go to the museum and grind the cables of an old airplane propeller. The propeller breaks free from its confinement, breaks the window, and rolls out of the museum, only to cause an unlucky passenger to be hit with a pipe underneath the deck and get thrown far out into the shark-infested ocean. This causes the lazy captain of this ship to extend the nets outside the ship, which opens up a little bit more of the level to use. (Don't ask why there is an aviator museum on a cruise ship, that's just how awesome it is.) This kind of chain-reaction is innovative, and it helps to squeeze a little bit of extra depth from the levels. (But the best part is that it's just plain fun to watch.)
One of the best parts of these levels is the goals. There are still the secret tapes, which are a standby of the series, but they have changed the majority of the goals to make them either helpful to the populace (grinding across a cable line to destroy the tree branches on top) or just plain destructive (causing a massive earthquake in Los Angeles through slightly believable methods). The fun things in the levels, like the propeller, are sometimes actually goals, adding to the fun. (The added realism is subtle, but appreciated too. Honestly, as great as Warehouse was, why were we asked to knock down stacks of boxes, especially when there was no one else there?)
Neversoft has not slacked off in the sound department, either. The licensed soundtrack is good, and the sound effects are clever. To really enjoy it though, you have to listen closely. For example, in the cruise ship level, the captain occasionally makes funny statements over the loudspeakers (Like insulting the guests when he doesn't know the loudspeaker is on.) The people who made this game just didn't miss a beat. The songs were well chosen and fun to listen to while skating around, and they help add to the game's unique atmosphere and feeling.
This is just a great package. There is absolutely no discernible fault to this game. The NPC's and the playable characters are interesting, and there's even some supernatural stuff in here. The tricks perform well and are very responsive, and it controls well. There are so many levels to explore and so much stuff to unlock, good luck finding anything wrong with it. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is fun, unique, fun, has good graphics, is fun, has a good soundtrack, is fun, has many levels and many things to do in them, it's fun, and there's a wide range of tricks you can do (and it's fun). The Bottom line is, if you have a console that plays it, buy it. And if you don't, buy the console and this game. You will not regret it.