GAME CLEAR No. 69 -- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4 (2002, Multiplatform)

Developer: Neversoft/Vicarious Visions
Publisher: Activision O2
Clear Date: 12/22/21
Clear Version: PlayStation
Clear Platform: PlayStation

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 is a game I’ve beaten before on Xbox, but it’s also one of those cross-gen curiosities that also got a release on the previous console generation at a time when generational jumps were considerably more dramatic. The result is a game that I consider different enough to catalog as a separate game.

Having said that, it’s also obviously similar enough that you pretty much know what you’re in for. It’s basically the THPS4 most of us are familiar with but with pared-down levels and running on the previous THPS engine. Another major difference is that the voice-acted pro skaters found throughout the “next-gen” versions are removed in favor of floating icons that give you prompts.

It’s been long enough for me since I played it on Xbox that the experience was pretty novel. I certainly had vague memories of the various levels, but that’s about it. There is an absolute shitton of challenges to beat, and most of them are pretty fun. Once you complete enough “Amateur” challenges, you unlock all of the “Pro” goals, including Pro-specific goals. These are generally catered to each individual Pro skater’s actual skating style and/or signature Special trick. These are fun to do, and they help mitigate the sense of emptiness left by the presence of actual skaters in each level.

My only real frustration with the game is that the old engine lacks the input buffer of the more modern games (or at least has a less-generous one). This caused me to drop a lot of combos as I got used to its constraints. I don’t recall having this issue with THPS1 or 2, but those games didn’t include the Revert or level-out, which drastically reduced the length of combos you could feasibly manage. This definitely annoyed me for a bit, but I got used to it. I’d compare to (probably completely unhelpfully) to transitioning from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to Super Smash Bros. Melee. You have to be much more careful about timing your inputs for the moment after your previous animation has finished.

Anyway, I don’t wanna spend a ton of time on this. If you like Tony Hawk games and twilight-years PS1 games, give this a shot. If you can adjust your inputs and get over the Z-clipping, you’ll have a good time.