Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD Preview

The younger gamer in all of us was very happy to hear the announcement that Mr Hawk was making a nostalgic come back. In the days of the original Playstation many of us spent hour upon hour guiding the Hawkman and his friends through the various board-based challenges the game had to offer. From the sound track to the level design, the early Tony Hawk games bring back treasured childhood memories for many, many a gamer and now they are back! It was starting to look like developer Robomodo couldn€™t do anything right. After taking the reigns of the series from Neversoft, Robomodo have produced two of the worst games in Tony Hawk€™s history, in the form of Tony Hawk: Ride and Tony Hawk: Shred. The new direction for the series was based on the idea that players would want to control their skater with a plastic skateboard peripheral, a strange assumption and one that meant the near destruction of the franchise. So what do you do when you have messed up a series this badly? You go back to the start, back to when Tony Hawk was a groundbreaking series that ruled ever console it appeared on. And that is exactly what Robomodo have done, remaking the first two titles and polishing them up to triumphant HD to excite the modern gamers overindulged eye. Yes, this is an obvious way to make some quick cash, but sometimes you can€™t resist. So what do we know about the remake? We know it's going to be released on Wednesday the 18th of July, to the Xbox Live Arcade as part of Microsoft's Summer of Arcade (although if you live in the UK, it certainly isn't summer at the moment). The Playstation Network will see a release later in the year. We know that the sound track will feature some tracks from the original games. These were an intergral part of any gamers memory as there weren't many songs and they played throughout the game, which was great. Some new tracks will also feature, but who cares about them? Here are the returning artists: Bring the Noise - Anthrax featuring Chuck D Superman - Goldfinger When Worlds Collide - Powerman 5000 Heavy Metal Winner - Consumed May 16 - Lagwagon No Cigar - Millencolin You - Bad Religion Making a return from the original games are skaters: Tony Hawk (Obviously), , Eric Koston, Andrew Reynolds and Rodney Mullen. These old-timers are joined by a few new guys who where probably playing the games first time around, they are: Chris Cole, Nyjah Huston Lyn-z Adams Hawkins, and Tony's son Riley Hawk. Some levels have been released but it is not clear whether more are still to be confirmed, so far we will be seeing; The Warehouse, the Mall, the Hangar, School II, Marseille, Downhill Jam, and Venice Beach. Some great choices there, they certainly know which were the better levels, with Venice beach a personal favourite of mine. Even before the games release, it has been announced that there will be DLC featuring levels from Tony Hawk€™s Pro Skater 3, which means more awesomeness later in the year. As far as gameplay is concerned we'll be treated to the usual THPS tricks and tasks, classic goals such as S-K-A-T-E and finding hidden tapes, which have now become DVD's, but surely they should be a digital download format like Netflix for todays audeince? Importantly, the game will include manuals, but no reverts, which dictates a lot as to how the game will play. It is unclear whether reverts will come with the THPS 3 release, but it would make sense as this is the game they first made an appearance. This is going to be a really hard game to get wrong, so here at Whatculture; we can€™t wait!