Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

Developer: Neversoft Entertainment

Publisher: Activision O2

Console: GameCube

Genre: Extreme Sports

Number of Players: 2

Released: November 15, 2001

Memory Card Blocks: 6

Introduction

Activision surprised GameCube fans by quickly porting this game from the PS2 in time for the launch of the GameCube. It is the 3rd game in the very popular Tony Hawk series. After religiously playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, I thought to myself how could they improve on this great game? I am glad to say that Tony Hawk 3 is an overall improvement on the predecessors and is without a doubt the best Tony Hawk game yet!

Graphics: 8.5/10

The graphics could have been better, but what can you expect from a PS2 port anyway? The very first thing I noticed was that the levels were a little bigger than those in Tony Hawk 2. They feature much more detail and even have cool destructible objects in the level. My favorite is no doubt in Los Angeles. After grinding 4 rails you set off an earthquake! The highway above you comes crashing down in pieces and a car is trapped on the edge about to fall off. A welcome addition is the many other objects in the level. There are cars driving around, the pedestrians are walking about, and paper on the ground will fly up if you go over them. The draw distance of the levels sometimes show the ugly pop-up, but luckily it doesn’t happen often.

That car is parked in a handicapped place?

The skaters are in high detail looking realistic. The player animations have been greatly improved. They are more fluid and you can really see each individual trick. There are new bail animations also and they look great. The blood has even been improved to look more life-like. Sadly, the frame rates are the graphics biggest disappointment. I’m pretty sure some humans won’t even notice the frame rate problems, but they are there. It’s really noticeable in the Tokyo level as you are going up ramps. The frame rate doesn’t really affect the game play though. So it’s more of an annoyance and doesn’t ruin the fun of this game.

Sound: 9/10

First off I should say that I hate every single song on this game. I know that a lot of humans will think it’s the best licensed game soundtrack ever though. In my opinion Jeremy McGrath Supercross World has the greatest video game soundtrack ever. The developers added a cool feature where you can edit the music tracks you listen to. You can set them up to be played in order, played randomly, or turn off any song that you don’t like. The sound effects are nicely done. There are a lot of different background noises like pedestrians taunting you, snowmobiles in the background, and birds chirping. Each surface your skateboard goes over has a different sound.

Gameplay: 9.5/10

There are 5 game modes present in the game. Career mode is where you will be spending a long time. You get to take 1 of 13 different skaters (8 secret characters) on a quest to unlock all 9 levels. There are some changes though for the better. Instead of collecting money to buy the next level, you just have to pass a certain amount of objectives. In addition you no longer buy stat points as there are now scattered about in each level. That’s about all the innovation you are going to get with this game. Single Session mode allows you to choose a level and skate for 2 minutes to set high scores and new records. Free Skate mode is basically practice. Just pick a level and skate as long as you like without the pressures of a time limit. 2-player will be discussed in the replay section of the review. Last but not least is the great Tutorial mode. Tony Hawk talks about how to do all the nifty tricks in the game. This is great for beginners to the Tony Hawk universe. A nice addition to the game.

Like previous games in the series, you have to score a lot of points by linking together tricks. To help you this time around is the new Revert move. This allows you to be able to link together air tricks. It takes a while to get used to using it because right when you land after catching big air. You have to hit the revert button and then do a manual to continue receiving points. This greatly changes the game play for the better. No longer will you just grind for the whole 2 minutes to rack up the points. One of the things I want to see Neversoft fix in the next game is when your character runs into a wall. Your character just bounces off the wall like it’s a trampoline! Very annoying. Also a special note about the rumble feature. Since I did a lot of grinding in this game, I think it caused one of my controllers to stop rumbling! So the rumble is very good.

Controls: 9/10

The controls for the most part are pretty good. A jumps (ollie), B is for flip tricks, Y is for grinds, and X is for grab tricks. You control your character with the control stick or the small d-pad. The control stick works surprisingly good here so if the d-pad is too small, just use the control stick. Tapping down, then up or vice-versa, on the control stick performs the manual. This is where the controls get tricky, for some reason the spin and revert are mapped to the R-button. Revert is pushing the button all the way down to the digital click. It is quite confusing at the beginning, but once you master it, it works well. The L-button is used to spin your character the other way. The C-stick is used to rotate the camera and the Z-button is different zoom levels for the camera.

Replay: 9.5/10

Perhaps the best feature of this game is the great replay value. To beat the game, one must beat career mode with each character. There are 13 different skaters to start with and 8 un-lockable secret characters plus one custom skater. A very nice addition is that each character faces different challenges and goals! This greatly increases the replay value, although there is not that much difference between each character. After you beat the game you also get a bunch of cool cheat codes to use to get high scores. Also the movies for each skater after you beat the game are very cool. The Tony Hawk video features a little mini-interview with him and for Bam you get to see some of his antics from the Jackass show on MTV.

There is a great Create-A-Skater mode included. I built myself as close as possible and was able to go into career mode and build up my stats. I also had great fun in dressing up all the characters in whatever clothing I wanted to. They even allow you to create a female skater this time. The Create-A-Park is back and better then ever. Neversoft once again included there own created park to give you some hints as how to build one yourself. The multi-player is pretty solid. There is sadly, no 4-player support this time around. All the 2-player modes are fun, but would be even better with 4-player action. Also the GameCube version does not feature online play that is in the PS2 version. Of course it’s no big deal since Nintendo just recently announced their online plans. I guess I was just hoping for something extra to make up for the missing online mode, oh well.

Conclusion

This is definitely one of the better GameCube games currently out right now. I still play this game on occasion after 5 months. The game is faster and the levels are bigger then previous games in the series. The same addicting game play is intact, but I’m wishing for some new game play modes for the sequel. I would also like to see more then 9 levels and get rid of the 2-minute time limit in place of something different. There is little doubt in my mind that this is the best Tony Hawk yet. It’s damn near perfect for what it is. This game should be in everybody’s GameCube library. It’s that good. Let’s hope Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 is developed specifically for the GameCube next time around!

Pros Cons

Interactive levels Port of a PS2 game

FMV movies are cool No 4-player support

New revert move No online support

Addictive game play Frame rate is inconsistent

Slightly improved graphics over PS2 version

Final Score: 9.25/10, 93%, A

Reviewed by: Eric Brown on June 3, 2002

Go back to the top of the page.