EDIT:
PROBABLY DON'T BUY THIS GAME
I'll be the first to admit it. The Tony Hawk 1 Pizza Hut Demo is what got me into skateboarding as a kid. I broke a few bones and a few boards. The high point of my teenage skating dream was being able to drop into a full size vert ramp and come up the other side unscathed. That and smacking Tony Hawk in the face with a poster.
After 4 great games (and some other not so great games which I thankfully never had the chance to play) THPS 5 is coming out to bring us back to a simpler time.
Xbox One and PS4 versions come out September 29th. PS3 and 360 versions come out 11/10
The game will purportedly allow up to 20 people to skate online together, which may give us all some fun skate sessions together. (From what I've read online, mutliplayer won't be available on last gen consoles)
As you can see in the Conan video, the graphics don't look amazing (but hopefully that's not the case). However that's never been the biggest sell for this game, and I'm suspecting it probably didn't have a huge budget. More it was probably about them getting back to form and creating the game that many of us grew up with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIKzHAS1N_U
This will be a place for us to talk about it and meet other forumers to skate with.
Xbox One Forumer ListUser Name -
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Element Brian - ElementBrian
PS4 Forumer ListUser Name -
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Here is a soundtrack list
Anti-Flag - “Stars and Stripes”
Atmosphere - “Southsiders”
Black Pistol Fire - “Hipster Shakes”
Bully - “Milkman”
Cloud Nothings - “I’m Not Part of Me”
Cold Cave - “A Little Death to Laugh”
Connie Price and the Keystones - “International Hustler”
Crass Mammoth - “All 149”
Deaf Poets - “Degenerate Mind”
Death - "Keep On Knocking"
Death From Above 1979 - "Virgins"
Deer Mother - "When The Wolves Come Out"
Doomtree - “Mini Brute"
Fake P - “Rorschach”
Family Force 5 -"Raised By Wolves"
Four Year Strong -"Go Down In History"
Harlan - "Moment To Myself"
Hundred Visions - "Our Ritual"
Hungry Hands - “Highline”
Icon For Hire -"Cynics and Critics"
Killer Be Killed -"Wings of Feather and Wax"
New Politics -"Everywhere I Go"
Plague Vendor - “Black Sap Scriptures”
Ratatat -"Cream on Chrome"
RattBlack - "Skate Rock"
Royal Blood - "Little Monster"
State Champs - "Secrets"
Temples - "Shelter Song"
The Orwells - "Who Needs You"
The Schitzophonics - “Rat Trap”
The Sheds - "Bad Things are Bad"
Yogi & Skrillex - "Burial"
Posts
Yeah, I'm not expecting this to be a game changer by any means. More of a return to form that the other THPS games had and slightly updated for the new generation.
I give it the same anticipation I give the new Rockband. I'm not looking for something new here. I'm looking for something familiar.
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
Steam: adamjnet
if there had been a couple just really fun, playable levels, that's all i ever needed. Just trying to outscore my friends, but the levels I've seen so far just don't have any really good flow.
I doubt I'll be picking it up this afternoon now
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
I'm no game developer so I don't know how hard it must be to replicate "feel" from an older game in a newer engine and all
But boy
If there were ever a surefire thing, Tony Hawk HD was it
And it was awful
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Apparently they lose the Hawk license at the end of the year. This was the last chance and they blew it!
It honestly doesn't look as bad as that glitch video, seems like those problems exist in user created content. But the framerate and UI look terrible and Jeff isn't very happy with the feel of the game.
Polygon's video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRGoN9uSL6E&feature=youtu.be
Way to damage control guys.
I feel like when multiple sites are calling you out on your buggy mess of a game you have to get some assurances of patches up ASAP. Instead they pull this emperor's new clothes BS.
Devolver has it right,
I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Never a bad idea.
THPS 2 is basically the textbook definition of "Perfect Sequel". You had the same core gameplay, but with significant expansion and refinement (more moves, the introduction of the manual, tighter controls), you had the addition of Create a Skater and Create a Park, you had the ability to adjust your stats based on your own playstyle instead of having each character's stats just go up after you hit a certain point in the game, you could select which tricks you wanted to use, there were more skaters, more levels (and more of them had secret areas), and there was more of a variety in the soundtrack.
I had friends in high school that also had DCs and THPS2 and we would build custom levels and then trade them at school using the VMU's file sharing function. It felt like the future.
Hope I'm wrong, but that's the direction this silly biz is going.
Yeah I think this project was probably underfunded and I don't completely blame RoboMoto.
I think historical Tony Hawk just stopped selling because long term fans, like myself, just got burnt out on yearly sequels. So they have since been in a position where they feel like they need to reinvent the series in order to sell it. THPS5 was an attempt to bring the game back to its roots and was betting on the recapturing the core audience, which I think was absolutely the right way to go. It makes it even more tragic that this release is getting panned and will deservably not sell well because I think this is the last time Activision will attempt to revisit the classic series.
I'm probably write up something tomorrow
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
It doesn't help either that I know none of these guys in this game. I want Bam and Daisy back. I might just find a used copy of THPS4 and play that.
-The worst component of the game is the 'stomp'. Instead of pressing triangle/y to grind, you press it to stomp, which slams you to the ground, or on top of a rail if there is one near by. The problem is that you will automatically stomp no matter what, if you ollie, after a second you're character will stomp to the ground, which makes it a lot more difficult to pull of tricks. It also slows you down and in my opinion makes the game kinda jagged and jumpy.
-no trick modifying. I think one of my favorite things in thps 2 was that you could press >>X and do a double kick flip and modify flip tricks this way.
-special meter. Instead of just doing a special move, you activate the meter and get a couple seconds of special moves, if you want to do a double kickflip, it has to be with the special meter on. Don't for the love of god do a grab trick while the special meter is going on however, it will force you to do some mundane grab where you have no idea how to judge and land.
Which brings me to my next point, a small one, but important
-you spin super fucking slow in the air. The biggest spin i could do with full speed and special going was a 360. Barely. I don't know if this is because they want you to build up stats or something, but it really kind of kills your mood when you're skating around, go in the air and your guys slows down for no reason.
-Every time you fall down, instead of just getting up, the screen loads your character a few feet from where you were. Basically they added a mini load screen in the middle of playing the game for any time that you fall down.
-The levels. I only played one level. Instead of the 2 minute game where you try to do as much as possible, and can immediately restart if you want; you are forced into an online free skate. From there you have to select missions ( they have icons that you're supposed to skate to and press x. This doesn't work) So you select some shitty mission from a big list of them, Load. Play the mission for 2 minutes. (and by that i mean, beat the mission after 15 seconds and then you're forced to wait the rest of the time for the mission to end.) then it loads you back into the online free skate and you repeat the process. I did this twice and got frustrated.
-It took me 15 minutes to figure out how to change my skater. And that includes loading into the game, finding out i still had tony hawk, going back, trying to figure it out, load back in, still have him, and get frustrated.
Overall, they just sucked all of the fun out of the game. They tried to make it a little bit more realistic with the stomp components, but that's fucking stupid where you're playing a game that was built around being unrealistic. The one level i played was ok, but doesn't compare to any of the levels in the first few games. The whole thing just feels slower. They changed it so you don't have to hold x to go ( but you still do) and now you can hold right trigger, but again, the stomp component keeps slowing you down and makes the game completely frustrating.
My girlfriend of a year who i was in love with broke up with me last week. I might be more broken hearted about this game.
oh and the graphics were shit but you already knew that
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
If Batman: Arkham Knight hadn't come out this year, this game would instead be a shoo-in for "Most Disappointing Game I've Ever Played"
And that is absolutely accounting for my own diminished expectations as we got closer to launch. In the weeks leading up to release, my thought process was "It won't be a true Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5, not on the budget they've allotted it, but as long as it's fun to just skate and dick around and the mechanics are solid I'll be fine with it."
Even with that relatively low bar, they somehow managed to completely fumble it. The bummer is that, unlike THPS HD, the problem wasn't the "feel." Street skating feels fine for the most part, and while vert seems slower and clunkier, I could have gotten used to it just being this game's style if they had any incentive for me to do so.
Instead we got:
- Super lame missions
- Bad glitches abound
- Including a glitch that wouldn't even let me start missions. It did this way more than just a few times.
- Being instanced into every mission, i.e. the exact antonym of seamless that I cannot come up with right now
- Being forced into public lobbies despite clarifying at the outset that I wanted to start a private "match" (ugh)
- Little quality of life things that make me question whether the decision-makers had ever played a Tony Hawk game. I've got these new stat points? Great! Now back out all the way to the main menu to actually apply them. Did you fail that goal? It should be ingrained into every THPS fan's head that all you have to do is press Start, hit down one time and X to retry the last run. Here, it's inexplicably a few steps down on their shitty UI. And when you restart it? It's not automatic - the game almost has to catch up with its own instanced state, and then it'll put up the mission objectives before they put you out into the run.
- The special trick system is awful, as is the fact that they reverted to the pre-4 (possibly pre-3? I forget) of "you have to land this trick to actually retain your special meter," and what's worse, the special trick system just turns basically every button press into a special trick! But thanks to the weird sluggishness of vert skating, it seems like you just barely clear enough air to pull any of these special tricks off, provided you actually find out what button does what because they certainly give no indications.
- Drab, boring, empty, dull levels. This seemed to be the thing setting off most people's alarms a few months ago but I kept naively telling myself, "it's okay, they have time, they're probably just showing off early stuff, the final game will be an improvement." It fucking wasn't.
- The camera. Holy shit, the camera. This is something more subtle that maybe would've taken me a few minutes to notice, but I had thankfully played some THPS4 while 5's patch was downloading. The camera is zoomed way too far in. That's skate's thing. That's a thing I don't like, I didn't like it Proving Ground either. I know I just said these levels are boring and lifeless and don't have much to do, but even the things that they do have, it's hard to keep perspective of where they all are because you're zoomed in way too damn close to your skater to take account of your surroundings.
Just a disaster, through and through. Thankfully I was able to adjust my expectations starting on a slow decline coming out of E3, but I'm sad that this is where this franchise has come to, and where it will seemingly end. I shouldn't be setting my expectations so low for a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater game, and the game should certainly not be tunneling through those expectations on its way to China.
At least I'll always have Tony Hawk 1-4. Skateboarding games were a beautiful thing there for a four-year period.
Also I'd feel for the devs if they were trying hard by just had the deck stacked against them by publisher tomfoolery, but fuck those guys if they're trying to pass this turd off as anything worth $60. Just be quiet and hope everyone forgets about it.
If you haven't tried them the Skate series is excellent I also think the THUG games were good as well, I prefer THUG to THPS4, mostly because I think the levels are better.
Yeah, there's pretty much no coming back from this, even if they want to.
The devs have never been able to make a good THPS game, so this not being good isn't a surprise. It's the level of bad it is that's got people irate.
As for the IP, I had figured this was like a movie right, and Activision had to make a THPS to keep the IP. So technically this let's them keep the IP for a while longer, but I'd be surprised as hell if they wanted to dip into this well again. Much like Fantastic 4, this might be what it takes for the publisher to sell the turd they couldn't turn into ice cream anymore.
Anyway, I watched the video again and what's wrong about it is that no one wants to be doing it. No one. Tony Hawk is the worst. He just looks miserable, doesn't he?
3DS Friend Code: 2449-5711-0640
If only we had known.
OlliOlli 2 is pretty great, worth grabbing imo. Not your traditional skate game it helps scratch that itch.
If only Neversoft had made it, we might have a decent game.
I've been on this original Xbox kick lately. I think I'm going to ebay to look for THPS4.
I played the majority of my Tony Hawk time on the original Xbox but I think the Duel Shock was better suited for the game.
The Xbox was still a great system though. Kind of strange that I've focused on Sony consoles since.
I legitimately feel bad for Tony Hawk in all of this. He seems like a good dude, and it has to be heartbreaking for him to see this happen. He seems to legitimately want fans to have a good simulated skateboarding experience, and I think he knew in advance that it wasn't going to happen this time around, while not being able to do much about it.
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
What the fuck happened?
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Anyways, this new THPS can die in a fire.
They need to get that shit up on PSN.
Let's not pretend like Neversoft had consistently good quality through their Tony Hawk run. Hell I am not convinced RoboMoto couldn't make a good game given more time. I really think the death of Tony Hawk in terms of quality was sticking to a yearly release cycle from 1 to Proving Grounds despite the fact that development for PS3 was substantially harder than PS1 dev.