Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 Review

It’s good to see Tony Hawk again. His image needed a renovation. The last time we saw him, in Professional skater 5, spent most of the time on the ground. In fact, he spent most of the time in the ground, churning through a fog of asphalt, thanks to a tangle of failures: a hardly worthy position for a man in the grind of middle age. But of course, I can’t imagine him doing something as gross as getting old; As someone who has built a career out of a polite but firm disagreement with gravity, why should I succumb to the passage of time? I like to think that he, like Dorian Gray, struck a deal: whereby the games bearing his likeness would fade in their place. And they withered. Senescence seemed to set in, appropriately enough, around the time of Tony Hawk’s Downhill JamFollowed by a long run of the nose, from mediocre to total disorder.

What, then, to do with Tony Hawk’s 1 + 2 pro skater? Well, the title is commendable. Not for Mr. Hawk, the fuzzy Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, another statement released by Activision, whose name takes the same topic as the topic, spreading misinformation and massive confusion. No graceless appendages, like Spyro Reignited Trilogy or Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. Here we are told exactly what we get for our money, presented as simple arithmetic: one + two = a journey back to the happy height of the series, on the PlayStation, when their world full of ramps was created by Neversoft, and it seemed like a true reflection of ours, as skating culture reached its peak early in the decade 2000. Since this is the third time that the first two entries have been republished, after 2x professional skater and Pro Skater HDYou may be wondering why the hell you should bother.

There are a few reasons. To begin with, you are rarely in Earth. The joys of the game are in the area just above him, sliding on his rails and skimming his concrete. There, freed from the clutches of logic, are the familiar neighborhoods of everyday life — the school, the shopping center, the street — lifted from monotony into a realm of high abstraction. The taste of the action is pure arcade. If, in 2007, he moved away from Proving ground towards the more sober and bruised reality of EA Rollerblading and mourned the loss of the colossal and the crazy, then this will feel like a balm. The euphoric feats of inhuman dexterity that build jumps are carried out in pursuit of a high score and combined into a stream of unconscious inputs from the controller. You may find yourself emerging, out of breath, not just from an uninterrupted combination, but from an afternoon that has sped by in a blink that makes your eyes red.

Then there are the developers, Vicarious Visions and Beenox. Both have shown, with Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, respectively, a surgical talent for the art of faithful remake. It consists of making deep incisions in our memory, delicately presenting us with the burnished result and proudly placing ourselves in the shadow of another study. There are few finer shadows in which to do one’s tedious work than Neversoft casts, whose games were never still. They were possessed by a joyous movement. Is it any wonder that the developer who brought us Professional skater 2 also gave us Spiderman, that same year? The overriding fun of effortless movement abounds with both, whether glued to a thunderous plank or flying down the boulevards on a silken thread. As the Tony Hawk series progressed, he built up a muddy crust of gimmicks (stories, peripheral hardware, Bam Margera) that jammed the clean, buzzing wheels of his appeal. The new studios pay respect and homage to the original releases, valuing their clarity above all else.

So you’ll find the first two games generously reissued on Unreal Engine 4 and featured with a reinforced roster of skaters and a host of new songs on the soundtrack. The art direction, by John Paul Rhinemiller and John Dobbie, is sharp and brilliant, honoring our memory of its subject. Take a look at Marseille, a level sprayed by freshly squeezed light from an orange juice ad, or Warehouse, whose twisted wood and tall windows give it the air of a loft. The pace of the game, now as then, is as follows: Pick a skater (returning legends like Rodney Mullen are joined by newcomers like Nyjah Huston and Lizzie Armanto), a location (17 classic skate parks await ), and a song (either a treasured old number or, if you want to walk on the wild side, a new addition, such as “Can I kick it?” from A Tribe Called Quest). Then skate.

When you do, you realize that your strengths and tensions originate from the same place. There is an advantage that Vicarious Visions and Beenox have over Neversoft, but it is not fair: the years. You notice it mechanically at first (wall plants and reversals of Professional skater 3 are present) and, more gradually, in their power to excite. There is no great innovation here, just the renewal of a love that once became brittle. The series stalled from replay, and while this entry steers away from the glitch and complication that ruined later games, it mostly benefits from us.

In his great essay on Grand Theft Auto IV, “Video Games: Addiction”, Tom Bissel tells us that “maybe all a game can do is point to the person who is playing it, and maybe this has to be enough.” While playing Professional skater 1 + 2, I couldn’t help but feel the pain of what was being pointed out. I suspect that those whose pimples bear the scars of figure skating will feel it too; who still wrap their feet in thick DC shoes; and that they have, in the time-warped guts of their wardrobe, the reckless T-shirts of another era. We’ve discovered, to our horror, that we haven’t become kickflipping superstars, that our waists have thickened, and that the sky cannot be a half pipe after all. But perhaps it could be a weekend on the couch, not entirely in the company of a masterpiece, but in front of a gleaming mirror and a magnificent glimpse of the newly adorned past. Perhaps this has to be enough.

Developer: Vicar Visions, Beenox

Editor: Activision

Available in: Playstation 4 [reviewed on], Xbox One, PC

Release date: September 4, 2020

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