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By Michael Robinson on December 20th, 2001
Introduction THPS2x is everything a Hawk fan could ask for, well, besides THPS3. THPS3 it ain’t, but it is every park from both THPS1 and 2, plus 5 new ones. And all of them beautifully redone to take advantage of the Xbox’s power! I had almost wet myself just thinking about it.Presentation Remember the cool little skateboard wheel and the skate park theme that was in THPS2? Gone. A more technological look is used in THPS2x for the menus. I liked the old look better, but its no big thing. It is actually a bit easier to go through the main menu, since you don’t have to wait for the wheel to stop spinning in order to know exactly where you are going to go. Other than that, same thing with a different look.And the controls, at first, the Xbox’s controller seemed horrible for this game. I had no problem with the size, in fact, the Xbox controller feels almost perfect to me, but the button layout is what got me. But about five minutes later, I got over that too. I’m used to playing THPS2 on my Dreamcast, so maybe that is why I was able to convert to the Xbox’s pad pretty quickly, so it may take you more time if you are used to the PS1/2 pad. Graphics & Sound Graphics wise, it is a big step over THPS2 for Dreamcast. Better texures, smoother framerate, a lot less aliasing, and the character models have even been improved too, and an added blur effect on the skaters (which you can turn off if oyu don’t like it) makes everything that much cooler. There are even individual blades of grass instead of it just being textures, and no more rotating 2D plants, they have been redesigned. The backgrounds of each skatepark have been improved too. The only gripe I have is that the character model’s faces should have been improved more, and a reflection effect in water and such would have been nice too, but overall, still great graphics.Now onto the sound. The game still retains all the old music from THPS2, assorted differently now, but it is still all there, and that is the only music in the game. No new tracks, nothin’. Personally, I’m sick and tired of the THPS2 music, fortunately, THPS2x utilizes the Xbox’s CD ripping ability. You can make your own soundtrack now, and ditch the original one. I fortified mine with Tool songs, you can make your own personal soundtrack for the game with Rock, Rap, Elton John, whatever, its yours to edit. You can make it about as long as you want it too, I have 55 minutes worth of music right now as my custom soundtrack, and it hadn’t even put a dent in how much space I have left on the Xbox’s hard drive. The sound effects are the same too, which isn’t bad at all, since they were great in TH2. The only problem I have is with the female skaters. This time around, you can make female skaters in create-a-skater, but her sound effects for whenever she bails or hits a wall is the same, annoying sound, because of that, and the female create-a-skater customizations being pretty lame, I stayed away from creating female skaters. Gameplay If you have played any Tony Hawk game (if you haven’t, you suck), then you already know what to expect. Some tweaking has gone one for some reason though, like you seem to get more air, and its way easier to get tricks like 900s, way easier, to the point where I can hit 1080s easy. But dropping off of something and taking a huge fall will now make you fall of your board, but this usually only happens on extremely long falls.Having to go through levels you’ve probably already gone through over and over again to unlock secrets is tedious and annoying though, and the extra 5 skate parks aren’t all that much to write home about. It seems like those 5 extra parks went on Neversoft’s "stuff we go half-assed at" list along with the female create-a-skater option. But you party freaks will have an extra-good time with this Tony Hawk rendition, since it supports up to 4 players via splitscreen on one Xbox, or up to 8 players when you link 2 TVs and Xboxes together. Lasting Appeal This is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2x we’re talking about! Appeal? Its got loads of it. Tear through every skate park from THPS1 and 2 in one game, along with 5 semi-cool new ones, all with suped-up graphics and whatever music you want! Can’t go wrong with that.Conclusion It may not be Hawk 3, but it is the 2nd best Hawk game available right now, and it will definately tide you over until THPS3 does come out for Xbox. |
