Introduction

When you first start to sign on to the game, you notice something very dfferent. The setup menu is in a skate shop for firsts. This is very weird, because you would think it would take tons of time to load. In a blink you see skate boards on the walls and Tony Hawk there. When you go into the actual menu you have choices between many things. The usual mostly. Here’s the little catch, when you go to pick a skater, you would think the features of the last THPS would be similar. Totally wrong. When you first start to choose a character, you see one new face. You also see one guy missing, yes they got rid of one. They added Bam Margera, yes the "Jackass" guy. Unbelieveably his face looks exactly like in real life. That’s only one thing they have made this game better with. The person that is gone, bye bye, is Bob Burnquist. Yes the person who has some of the best technical tricks in the game is gone. You have the usual people in the Skater Choice. Just now, when you decide on one, you can change the outfit in a thousands combonations. I mean there are a lot of things you can do. With choosing their deck and wheels, they have hues now, so there are tons of choices. With the decks, I’ll explain later when I talk about the levels.

With the two player option there are basically the same things it had in THPS 2. I’ll name them just to refresh your memory. They are Graffiti, Time Attack, horse, slap!, King of the Hill, and free skate.

Now on to the new levels. They are not the same at all. I’ll name each level and explain it. The first level, is the Foundry. This level is like a metal plant. It is set up with cat walks above you and below is the whole plant. It is fairly big and is very fast. The way it is situated allows you to do a lot of grinds. The goals for the level change for each character. Like on all the levels, it changes for each individual character. Some things stay the same, but some are totally differnt. An example is, you grind a different rail. Some obsticles in the level are new. People walk around now, like formen for the building. They inspect stuff inside and actually do work while you’re there. Also, photographers take pictures of you when you do the trick that is needed for a goal. Canada. What can you say about this, it just brings into your head cold and snow. Well you do skate on snow in a part of the area. It’s pretty cool in my opinion. You get to do a lot of lip tricks. If you grind a rail to the bottom of a pier, you see a guy taking a piss off a trailer house into the water. It’s rather quite funny. Level 3, is Rio. The first career contest. "Quiksilver Rio Ruckus" is the name of the comp. Here it is like a small skate park, almost like a block with streets with cars on it. The only new thing about this is, the cars stop when you’re infront of it. Instead of running into you they stop and wait for you to pass. Area 4, Suburbia. This is probably my least favorite, but other friends I’ve talked with say they love it. So it may just be me. It is located in a newly developed neighborhood. There are like 5 houses that are upper class, a evil mansion, and a trailer park. It is actually a neat setup, but I don’t like it that much. Not enough obsticles to do tricks on. Area 5 is the Airport. By far my most favorite. I have tons of stuff to talk about in this one. The airport is so realistic. When you first start, you are in the lobby of the airport, and you go through the stair escalators and the walking escalators. Very realistic in my opinion. Also when you grind down the escalators, Rent-a-cops try to stop you and if they hit you, you get knocked off. Very cool in my opinion. Also, you have metal detectors. As you know, there is metal on your skate board, when you run through them they go off. I won’t spoil it, but that is a little of why I like it. Level 6 is the best skate park in the game. Skater’s Island. The "King of the Coast Jam". This is something like Skate Ventura in THPS 2, but it is some what small, and is very fast. A lot of nooks and cranies that are in this level. Level 7 is Los Angeles. This is just like L.A. Not as big, but you can get the picture I hope. Cleverely, a goal is to start an earthquake. Level 9, the "last" level. This is in Tokyo, the "Mega Mecha Mayhem", and when they say that, they really mean it. Like the Bull ring in THPS 2, it has the looping thingy, but there are deux of them, for you not so good french people that’s 2. They have two, and it is very cool. Like you could picture Tokyo being, High Tech, neon lights, that’s exactly it. There are neon signs all over the place, a lot of rails. The level is super fast. Unfortunatly, if you don’t get into the 200,000 point range, you don’t have a chance to medal.

Well, what else is there, ahh yes, the controls. The controls in the game are almose exactly the same as in the PS versions. The only draw back is with the 1st party controller the D-pad is a little to small, but other than that it’s fine. It just takes a few minutes to get used to.

You are probably wondering how you get new decks, new specials, and new stats. Well, you don’t get cash for winning things now. You have to earn the stats, decks and tricks. For the stats, they are scattered around the level just waiting to be snatched by you. For the new decks, since there are 8 levels, each level has 1 deck some where. It is very hard to find them. Myself am an avid THPS fan, and I still cannot find them all. For the Tricks, when you "100%" a level, like in THPS 2, you get a slot for a special trick. That is so far what I have found out. I may be wrong, seeing how I have only finished one whole level.

Well, that is about it for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, a lot has changed, and I won’t explain it all. A lot has happened with the levels. I hope I didn’t spil anything for you, and if so sorry. But by all means, I did not tell you all. I don’t even know all the cool things about the game, for it has just launched.

Enjoy!

Presentation

Graphics & Sound

Gameplay

Lasting Appeal

Conclusion