We played for several hours the anticipated demo of this long-awaited remastering in Warehouse, territory known to fans of the original work.
Activision seems determined to concatenate successes with its remasters. We’re not going to deny that we were excited to learn that Crash Bandicoot and Spyro were back with their classic platform trilogies a few years ago; with the addition of recalling Crash Team Racing in a great way with a remake to match. There was a common denominator in all of them, and it was nothing other than the general quality of the whole; respect for original works. That’s exactly what we feel with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2.
After playing a few hours in Warehouse – the only map unlocked in this demo that will open this August 14 for players who have reserved the title -, if there is one thing we can assure you is that they have not taken many risks, there are no experiments or attempts to over-modernize a formula that time has proved right.
It is still the warehouse we all remember.
Birdman, here we come to fly
It would be rash to draw conclusions now. We have only accessed one character, in a single scenario and with quite a few limitations in options, customization, etc. There will be time to value all that. In terms of playability, however, a remastering awaits us that at the controls feels exactly the same as on the original PlayStation… only softened. We want to talk about sensations. It is true that some animations have had a strange behavior when impacting with few textures, nothing serious. Nothing to raise an eyebrow. The music that plays in the background does not fool us: it is pure Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
The quintessential arcade skateboard saga had its glorious moment with a critical and public launch on both PlayStation and Nintendo 64 in 2000, which is when we received it in Europe. Neversoft successfully identified a niche and turned it into fashion. Those few minutes long games put the player on the ropes to bring out his talent through impossible tricks and asphalt-proof kneecaps.
This we are discussing is not trivial, because one of the things that we liked the most about this playable demo of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater are the animations of the character’s revival, which seems to undergo a hologram in a matter of tenths of a second. Have you stamped yourself against the wall? Before you know it, you’ll be on the road again.
Another equally positive collateral damage is command. We have tested the demo with a DualShock 4 on PlayStation 4 Pro and the sensations could not be better. Nostalgia can play a trick and, on this occasion, we prefer crosshead or joystick to do tricks, fluidity and precision do not suffer one iota. From the options menu – in which we have spent a good time trying to investigate how deep it is in the playable plane – we found a triple configuration. On the one hand, the standard, suitable for a current command; on the other, a command configuration that emulates the mapping of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. In this case, it all depends on the player’s preference. Where there will be no room for change is in online mode, one of the non-existent novelties in the original works, where the progress of the character we select will always be raised to the maximum to ensure that everyone will play on equal terms.
Modernization of a classic, but without going overboard
We can also talk about an easily readable interface, with an extensive catalog of tricks and options that we can select with shortcuts to combine keystrokes with very specific acrobatics. Nothing changes here either, with a circle for the grab tricks, a square for the flip tricks and a triangle for the lip tricks. We insist, it would be very difficult to find a classic player feeling uncomfortable with this remastering; especially if it is a PlayStation player, where the crosshead of the first DualShock and that of the DualShock 4 are not really that different.
On a technical level, it shows that it is a finished title, but it has a remake flavor. It is not a remastering to use, but efforts have been made to recreate everything more realistically both in size and dimensions. And we explain ourselves with examples. When it comes to propelling ourselves up the ramps, the jump is not so exaggerated; In short, we do not fly, but the physics and the force of gravity are printed with a little more force than in the works of the 2000s. Broadly speaking, it is the same, but we think it necessary to make it clear that it is a remake in which changes have been applied to the environments without altering the drawing of the scene: everything is in its place. There are no bumps or curves missing; the perimeter of the maps is the same and the ability to destroy items has not been modified.
However, it remains to be seen how ambitious the game is when it comes to recreating more open maps, other scenarios that are part of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater story, such as Hangar and the School. The video previews that we have seen invite us to optimism, of course, so we only have to wait until next September 4 to find out. The lighting makes it seem unrecognizable at times, although the color palette continues to maintain those ocher tones, less saturated, that made areas like the Warehouse itself such a particular place and, why not say it, endearing.
Regarding the soundtrack, apart from the 19 original songs from the first two installments that have been rescued, we also have another 37 totally new songs. Get ready to hear again Guerrilla Radio, from Rage Against the Machine; Blood Brothers by Papa Roach; You, from Bad Religion; o No Cigar, by Millencolin. The first of them, one of those chosen for this demo, is known to be essential to facilitate immersion, to eliminate any hint of doubt as to whether or not we are playing Tony Hawk.
It is Pro Skater in its purest form, with a visual aspect at the height of the current times. It is not a product to muddle through, rather it mimics the modus operandi of the purple dragon and the marsupial. Believe us: it’s time to fasten the case, this promises.
We have made these prints on a PlayStation 4 Pro console through a download code provided by Activision.
