00:00 I didn't think that the warehouse level in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater would be able to
00:16 capture my undivided attention.
00:19 Not again.
00:20 Not now that I'm a 30 year old equipped with bad knees, a million miles away from
00:23 the wannabe Rodney Mullen that spent many a night eating s*** on these same spots two
00:28 decades ago.
00:29 I expected to dip in, have a little fun, eventually get annoyed with the cadence of John Feldman's
00:34 voice and dip out.
00:35 So believe me when I tell you that I don't know what happened.
00:38 I sat down with a demo after work and the next thing I knew it was 1am.
00:42 Time erodes all things.
00:44 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is the one constant.
00:46 I honestly couldn't tell you if the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 remake handles
00:50 exactly as it used to, but I can tell you that it handles exactly as I remember it did.
00:55 I don't have a Playstation, Dreamcast or N64 to hand, but if I had made a retro library
01:00 my priority for the pandemic, I wouldn't be surprised to find the conversion was close.
01:04 Truth be told, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 remake looks and feels exactly as I
01:08 remember it did too.
01:09 There's something so strangely satisfying about stumbling upon all these special spots
01:13 from 20 years ago.
01:15 It's as if they've been preserved in a small cordoned off area of my brain for later
01:19 use - a dopamine hit released every time I hit one of those lines or gaps that is enshrined
01:23 in blue on the combo chain.
01:25 The warehouse demo is missing the glowing SKATE letters and the secret VHS tape, but
01:31 I already know where they'll be in the final game from instinct alone.
01:34 And in their absence I'm still having a bloody great time smashing past the 6 score
01:38 boundary and hitting a 5-0 on the big rail.
01:41 Some things never change.
01:42 That's because there's something to the speed and momentum here in Tony Hawk's
01:46 Pro Skater 1 and 2 remake.
01:48 It invites competition and escalation in a way few other games have been able to achieve.
01:52 The hang time is as satisfying as ever too, lingering long enough to tempt you into inserting
01:57 a faceplant through your combo.
01:58 The magnetic snap to rails and the drag of grip take across concrete, your weight shifting
02:03 in tandem with that of the balance meter.
02:05 Listen, I don't know how much you can ultimately divine from one demo, but if this is truly
02:09 representative of the wider experience, then this will be the Tony Hawk's game we've
02:13 been waiting a long time for.
02:15 And that's the tricky thing with nostalgia, because we have been waiting not for something
02:18 new necessarily, but for something old.
02:21 It's put the developer Vicarious Visions in the unenviable position of needing to recreate
02:25 a feeling rather than the experience itself.
02:28 And it has to do this while it works to both erase Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 from living memory
02:33 and establish a platform for the series to make an endearing return.
02:37 Thankfully, the studio charted this path once before as it revived Crash Bandicoot alongside
02:41 Toys for Bob in 2017.
02:44 The N. Sane Trilogy is a success story few could have predicted, although it has established
02:48 a precedent for retro revivals within Activision.
02:51 After an evening with the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 and 2 remake warehouse demo, I can't wait
02:56 to drop into school too.
02:57 I can't wait to hit Downtown and Venice Beach and Hangar.
03:00 Vicarious Visions has made me want to play more Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and that's
03:04 something I never thought I'd find myself saying again.
03:06 There's enough in here that makes me wonder whether Vicarious Visions is actually capable
03:10 of picking up where Neversoft left off in its Pro Skater years, had it avoided an American
03:15 wasteland of its own design.
03:23 (chiming)
Comments