There is a very specific feeling that comes with booting up Tony Hawk Pro Skater for the first time. The opening guitar riff hits, the timer starts, and suddenly two minutes is both everything and nothing. If you grew up with the original games, that feeling is burned somewhere deep. If you didn’t, you’ve probably only ever heard about Tony Hawk in the context of the plastic skateboard controllers that nearly killed the franchise in the late 2000s. Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD is Robomodo’s attempt to remind everyone what the series actually was before things went sideways.
The HD remake pulls seven levels from the first two games: Warehouse, School II, Mall, Hangar, Phoenix, Marseille, and Venice Beach. Seven is not a lot. The original THPS had eight levels on its own, and between the two games there is a deep catalogue to pull from. Marseille is here and it looks fantastic. Downhill Jam is not, which stings. That said, the seven levels chosen are largely the right ones, and the physics from THPS2, which were the tightest in the series, carry over intact. Chaining manuals into kickflips into grinds still feels correct. The problem is executing it on the Xbox 360’s D-pad, which is genuinely one of the worst D-pads ever put on a controller. Pulling off trick sequences that were natural on the original PlayStation controller becomes an exercise in fighting your own hardware. It’s not a dealbreaker but it is a constant reminder that this game belongs on a different input.
Visually the game earns its HD label. Most of the levels look genuinely great compared to their original counterparts, with Marseille standing out in particular. The one exception is Venice Beach, where the sun positioning gives the whole level an orange tint that makes it feel like a different game entirely. Character models are well done across the board, with the classic roster looking appropriately updated. Riley Hawk joins his father in the lineup, which is a nice touch for fans who have been with the series long enough to watch Tony Hawk’s career span generations.
The music situation is worth talking about because in the original games the soundtrack wasn’t background noise, it was part of the identity. Bring the Noise and Superman make their return and they still land the same way they did in 1999. Seven of the fourteen tracks are from THPS1 and 2, and the other seven are new additions. Flyentology and The Bomb hold up as picks, chosen with the apparent goal of becoming as synonymous with this version as the classics are with the originals. Whether they succeeded is a matter of taste, but the intent is clear and the selection is defensible. Sound effects throughout are accurate, which matters more than it sounds. There is nothing quite like the crack of a perfect grind in THPS, and it’s here.
Career mode is structurally identical to the originals: complete four to six goals per map to unlock the next one. The hidden tape has become a hidden DVD, a concession to 2012 that manages to be both sensible and slightly annoying at once. Big Head mode is new and works as an interesting score-challenge variant, penalizing long combo attempts in favor of rapid, consistent tricks. Online multiplayer is a welcome addition that the original never had. The one glaring omission is a tutorial. The original games could get away without one because they came out in 1999 and everyone was learning together. In 2012, with a significant portion of potential players having no exposure to the series beyond Ride and Shred, leaving out any onboarding at all is a real oversight.
For fifteen dollars at launch, Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD was an easy recommendation. It brought back something that had been missing for years and proved that the core of the series still works when the peripheral hardware and mission-based bloat are stripped away. Seven levels is lean, the D-pad friction is real, and the lack of a tutorial tells you something about who Robomodo assumed was buying this. But for anyone who wanted to feel sixteen again for an afternoon, it delivered exactly that.