It’s hard to believe that I am calling this “retro” and to be honest it isn’t that old but it has been 6 years since it was released so I don’t know what to call it. Let’s go with “slightly retro.” Now that that is out of the way let’s move on with the review. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 is one of my favorite games of all time. It incorporated everything that I loved about Pro Skater 3, and added an open-world element to the game. This free roaming element was nice because you could free skate at any time and then do an objective if you want to without having to go back to the main menu.
The levels are great in their variety; there is a college, San Francisco, Alcatraz, a shipyard, London, and a zoo. There are 16 regular goals in each level and when you complete a goal you get a “pro point” on top of money and stat points for certain challenges. After you earn 90 pro points you are prompted to go to your pro specific challenge, this challenge is harder and takes longer but when you complete it you unlock harder goals in all of the level, an additional 5 to be exact. The harder goals are marked by guys with red arrows over their heads as opposed to the regular guys with blue arrows over their heads. To start a goal you skate up next to a person with an arrow over their head and then you press the “O” button. They talk to you and explain what the goal is. Though there is a wide variety of goals there are some that are always present. There will always be the high and pro scores, the Combo letters (you have to collect all of the letters in a single combo) and the Skate letters that you may remember from Pro Skater 3. Then there are other goals specific to the environments but there is also usually a goal that involves you doing a “special” trick. To do this you need to fill up your “special” meter by doing regular tricks and not falling, and then you can perform the special trick.
There are several new gameplay elements that have been added to the mix including skitching (holding on to the back of a vehicle) the revert (a move where you can string tricks together by performing this move when you land back on a ramp) and flatland tricks (tricks that can be done while you are locked in a manual) These gameplay elements allow you to rack up huge scores and have a lot of fun. The control is great and everything is very intuitive, especially if you have played Pro Skater 3. The soundtrack is great, like always, and the graphics are pretty good although there is a lot of clipping that goes on. Overall this game just gets everything right, there is even a huge amount of mini-games that range from playing tennis with Bjorn to playing baseball with ghosts. These mini-games will get you additional money that you can use to buy new clothes, videos, decks, or levels. If you like the Tony Hawk series then you will love this game and I would highly recommend getting it because the gameplay itself is fantastic.
The levels are great in their variety; there is a college, San Francisco, Alcatraz, a shipyard, London, and a zoo. There are 16 regular goals in each level and when you complete a goal you get a “pro point” on top of money and stat points for certain challenges. After you earn 90 pro points you are prompted to go to your pro specific challenge, this challenge is harder and takes longer but when you complete it you unlock harder goals in all of the level, an additional 5 to be exact. The harder goals are marked by guys with red arrows over their heads as opposed to the regular guys with blue arrows over their heads. To start a goal you skate up next to a person with an arrow over their head and then you press the “O” button. They talk to you and explain what the goal is. Though there is a wide variety of goals there are some that are always present. There will always be the high and pro scores, the Combo letters (you have to collect all of the letters in a single combo) and the Skate letters that you may remember from Pro Skater 3. Then there are other goals specific to the environments but there is also usually a goal that involves you doing a “special” trick. To do this you need to fill up your “special” meter by doing regular tricks and not falling, and then you can perform the special trick.
There are several new gameplay elements that have been added to the mix including skitching (holding on to the back of a vehicle) the revert (a move where you can string tricks together by performing this move when you land back on a ramp) and flatland tricks (tricks that can be done while you are locked in a manual) These gameplay elements allow you to rack up huge scores and have a lot of fun. The control is great and everything is very intuitive, especially if you have played Pro Skater 3. The soundtrack is great, like always, and the graphics are pretty good although there is a lot of clipping that goes on. Overall this game just gets everything right, there is even a huge amount of mini-games that range from playing tennis with Bjorn to playing baseball with ghosts. These mini-games will get you additional money that you can use to buy new clothes, videos, decks, or levels. If you like the Tony Hawk series then you will love this game and I would highly recommend getting it because the gameplay itself is fantastic.
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