A disappointment and a shame.
The finished product is a tale of two halves; on one side you have what is very much a nostalgic and entertaining arcade release that's capable of entertaining and enticing new fans to the series. On the other you get a game that's filled with a mix of odd little choices and bugs that slipped through the net, making some of the moments taste a little sour.
For those who do not already know, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD is a game built on a mix of features from the first two games in the franchise. Classic levels get a new touch of paint, old skaters are joined by new, and classic challenges make a return.
To those returning to the series it's all steeped in nostalgia from the moment you enter the warehouse stage for your first run. Each level is a great recreation of the originals, even so far as featuring the original challenges. This means that, for the most part, the gameplay does a great job of recapturing the feel of classic old school Hawk games. Challenges are tough, but not impossible, and no matter how many times you might fall you always feel the need to get back up and try again.
As you progress through each stage completing challenges you're rewarded with cash (also available in each stage as a collectable item) that you can put towards your skaters stats and other features like new boards (that add little to the gameplay) or tricks (that add a lot).
It's clear that if you're going to progress through the game at all you're going to need to get your chosen skater's stats maxed out as soon as possible. Thankfully your move list set up in such a way that it feels like second nature. The Tony Hawk series was a real challenge in the early games and this HD re-visit really helps to bring it back to its roots.
As well as cash to spend on stats and boards you will also unlock new game modes during the career mode. These modes include the new to the series Big Head Survival, Hawkman and Projectives modes. They all provide a different taste of Tony Hawk's gameplay and really help to mix things up a bit.
The insane Big Head Survival involves you pulling off tricks and combos to prevent your ever growing head from bursting, Hawkman sees you using the skills you acquired during the game to collect a number of different coloured markers in as short a time as possible and Projective is a hardcore mode that unlocks once you have 100% across career with one character, taking all the levels from the career and injecting them with a small number of much harder tasks and challenges.
Big Head Survival also makes an appearance in the online multiplayer, along with more traditional Pro Skater modes, and while it makes a fun little addition is not nearly as fulfilling as the more classic score based modes when applied to the multiplayer arena.
Presentation-wise the Tony Hawk games have always had a good soundtrack and they were often something that helped to sway players into picking up the new game in the series. While Tony Hawk's HD contains a mix of track from the first and second game, as well as a selection of new tracks, it doesn't quite recapture the magic of the past. The problem is with the number of tracks themselves, or more specifically how often they play. Many songs are repeated with alarming regularity, while some seem to play once or twice every couple of hours. This means good songs become nerve poking irritants because you've heard them over and over again in the last hour.
Then there's the interface; from the opening to in game options it is, at best, ugly. At its worst, it just gets in the way of things. The front end is bland and minimalist leaving it feeling like nothing more than an emotionless list. The mode select is practically obscured from view; options are limited and inflexible; changing or improving your skater's stats requires backing out a few times. None of this breaks the game, but it does make it less pleasing experience than it could have been.
In-game you're given just enough control over what's going on; if you miss the sick score on a stage it's more than likely your fault. The sad flip side to this (no pun intended) is the occasions the game does break you are left feeling more frustrated than you should.
The most notable issue is the occurrence of level based glitches – on more than a few occasions we would touch a wall, or land in a funny spot, only to bail through the world itself and tumble into an abyss of black. This issue is all the more prevalent due to some very odd ragdoll physics. Grinding along a quarter pipe and jumping into a wall would understandably cause our character to not only bail, but more than a few times they would also suddenly bounce like a rubber ball into the air.
Collision detection seems to be all over the place with some places in the world that would be expected to cause a bail, ended up doing nothing. Other spots that should allow for essential tricks, like the wall ride, causing your character to shoot across the stage like they had been shot from a cannon.
Also some of the choices for levels seem questionable, with terrible stages like the Mall and Downhill Jam making the cut but Area 51, NY City, New York not getting a look in. Maybe we're just being picky about our personal favourites, but these two levels were not highlights the first time around and with their higher prevalence of glitches they've done little here to win us over. The game has all the right parts there for it to be both fun and challenging, but these mistakes sour the experience enough to detract from the simple and addictive gameplay.
There are also some issues with the level of control you have over what's going on. While thankfully for older players the d-pad and left stick can be used for movement and tricks; they can often be a little insensitive. Pull off a trick in the air and you'll get exactly what you asked for, or conversely (and apparently without reason) the game won't pick up your inputting at all. You press left to pull off a kickflip and instead you pull off a special that causes you to bail and loose a combo you were barely clinging to.
On occasions even simple commands, like holding forward to exit a pipe, seemed to do nothing at all, with us having to swap between d-pad and stick for different tasks. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was always about very tight and connected control over everything and while to a large extent this is still true, the times it inextricably isn't end up very disappointing indeed. When what you are attempting to do only happens in a marginal number of times or on a fluke you can't help but feel a little cheated.
Overall Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD is a passable reissue of a selection of features from the first two Pro Skater titles, but they are collected in such a way that they feel a like an empty highlight reel created to show a new generation what things used to be like. They might come away from this mildly entertaining experience knowing a bit more about the past games, but they will never really be able to understand what made those games special because, while Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD does a passable job mechanically, it doesn't quite capture the old magic.