By the time the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater was released onto the PlayStation, I had been a bona fide skateboarder for about two years. I picked it up late, because I didn’t properly move to California until 1997, and skateboarding was not exactly encouraged by my dad back home in Oklahoma City. In 1997, though, I started hanging out with a group of skateboarders in my freshman class, and became…a skater.
1999 hit, and Tony Hawk Pro Skater gave me a way to ollie, kickflip, and railslide my way around school grounds…without having to get off myass and ollie, kickflip, and railside my way around school grounds. This is a sickness of mine, you see. Why get up and do something in real life if I have a perfectly good digital substitute for the same activity? With THPS, THPS2, and THPS3, I had everything I needed to skate without aggravating my bad knees by…well, skating.
Now, Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD is bringing these games that nearly defined gaming for me over the period of a few years into a newly updated HD experience. Seven of the best levels from THPS and THPS 2 are recreated in HD with classic and current skateboarding professionals running the courses. Warehouse, School 2, Mall, Phoenix, Hangar, Marseilles, and Venice will be shredded like they’ve never been shredded before by Rodney Mullen, Nyjah Huston, Eric Koston, Chris Cole, Andrew Reynolds, Riley Hawk, Lyn-z Adams Hawkins Pastrana, and of course, the Birdman Tony Hawk himself.
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I’m going to lose the second half of 2012 to this game.
Fair warning.
