Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2

So i know you remember Skate or Die for the Nintendo. Well at least i remember it. I also remember that it was a rental copy and would always mess up when i tried to do the half-pipe competition. ANYWAY, i'm straying. So skateboarding games have been around forever since Nintendo and now a series that was very successful for the Playstation is coming to the PC. Obviously, Activision is trying to make some money while seeing if there hardwork can actually look good.

Now I know that not alot of people aren't in to skateboarding, but you don't have to be. As a minority, I know that skateboarding is not an activity that alot of us feel is geared towards us. BUT let me tell you, this game is real fun. You don't have to know alot about skateboarding or anything like that. But I guess you can say I'm biased so let me give you details.

The controls are pretty easy to get use to and as you perform tricks, your skater gets more skills in certain areas depending on what you've been working on. If you played the first one then there won't be that much of a difference when it comes to graphics and what not. For those who haven't played Tony Hawk, well it looks hot. The 3D environments are nicely detailed and just about anything can be used to perform tricks. PLUS if you fall while trying to pull of a trick, your skater will spit out blood. But what's being proclaimed as their "most notable feature" is the park editor. With this you can choose from some different themes and make your own park. Supposedly it won't be too difficult to use, like a Q3, UT or Half-Life map editor, but will see on that one. This way you can download other people's parks off the internet which means that Activision will be able to sell more copies based on the fact that people will want to get a copy so that they can see the nice park that someone else made. And in a PC only feature they are adding in the original parks from the first Tony Hawk.

The next new feature is the Create a Skater feature. If you have seen the create a player option in most wrestling games then you'll see that it is very similar. You can customize, height, weight, age, etc. Plus their clothes and board (most games allow you to change the clothes and etc.) And if you don't wanna create your own guy, they've got 13 characters for you to choose from. Here they are trying to create replay value in that you will want to beat the game with more than one person.....or at least that's the general idea. They also added alot more tricks and for some reason they added in the option to wear pads. WHO KNOWS WHY?

Now this time the career mode has gotten rid of the tape gathering idea. Yeah i know, they might have messed this up. BUT instead they have put in the gathering on Tony Dollars which can be used to get more, tricks or boards. And all of this is good because then you can use all of this in the free skate mode. There is also a HORSE mode, a tag mode which can be used for LAN play, a time attack mode and a graffiti mode which i won't even get into.

So overall.......I'm thinking the same thing you are: They better not F up one of my favorite games.