Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 PS2 Review

The amazing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series outdid themselves with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 compared to number 2. New tricks, new levels, new ways to shred it.

Graphics

This game was made quite a while back so it doesn’t have anything near the graphics we have these days but is still very good for its time; considering the amount of movement going on you rarely see any graphical glitches, although sometimes you will fall though the floor or pass right through a wall.

The graphics are easy to focus on and don’t go blurry like some games (Spiderman 2 for example). You can always see exactly what you are meant to be doing and can see as much of the way forward as you could see in real life. Although the background doesn’t move there are cars in outdoor levels and people in indoor ones.

A nice addition is the videos you get when you complete certain challenges, these challenges can be anything from knocking someone in a pool to causing an earthquake. Some things, like very thin rails, can be hard to see but not invisible. When you catch air the spins look quite real too and every flip trick is perfectly done.

Gameplay

The Tony Hawks games can take a lot of practice and at times it can get boring because you can’t score enough points to move up a level. I have been playing Tony Hawks games for 5 years now and am very good but I know people who are a lot better than me. When I started I was terrible but like I say: practice.

This game doesn’t have as much variety as the later ones (You can’t get off your board and run and you can’t do flatland tricks) but it features the revert which Tony Hawks 2 didn’t contain, meaning you can make bigger and better air combinations.

If you want to get the flat land and running tricks buy a later game but if you want to get the best level ever put into a THPS game buy this one. Skater Island is a truly superb level. Is has a great street section with ramps of perfect size and a couple of boxes/rails. It has three skating bowls, a small one, a large one and a kidney bowl. It also has a brilliant half pipe which is great for air.

As well as the usual ‘complete the goals’ levels there are three competition levels where you must score as many points as possible with as little as possible bails in three one minute runs. These can be very hard when you aren’t good at combos but you should get the hang of them sooner or later.

Also you do not need to do the career mode, you can use free skate to play the levels without a 2 minute time limit but you need to unlock them in career mode before you can play in free skate. Before you start career mode I would recommend getting some practice in on the foundry in free skate.

Once you complete the game with a certain skater you will get their pro skater video which is pretty amazing for some of them. I would recommend choosing Rodney Mullen as your character because he easily has the best video, also when you complete all the goals with a character you get a cheat for the game or a secret character but this can be hard.

Sound

The sound is quite realistic and sounds like it probably would if you attached a microphone to your skateboard and went around doing all the tricks. There is a wide range of real tracks to choose from, including CKY: 96 quite bitter beings and the almighty Motorhead: Ace of spades.

You can change the volume of the sound effects and music so you can skate without distraction or skate to the beat which can be helpful.

Lifespan

This game can get very boring at first but if you unlock all the levels and get a lot of practice in, you shouldn’t run out of fun things to do in free skate when you get bored with everything else. If you do get bored you can of course get some cheats and unlock all the levels and movies but where’s the fun in that!

I have been playing this game for three years now and still find the level Skaters Island extremely fun to play so I don’t see why someone else wouldn’t.

Overall

THPS 3 is a very entertaining game and definitely worth buying or at least borrowing off a friend, once you have completed this or got bored with it there are 5 other Tony Hawk games to play so remember to save up some cash!