Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
- October 04, 2002 11:23 AM PST
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The gasps of joy you hear are from gamers eager to get a glimpse of the latest Tony Hawk game. The screams of pain you hear are from those same gamers trying to do the tricks in real life.
What About Bob?All 15 pro skaters from years past will return for Tony Hawk?s Pro Skater 4, including fan-favorite Bob Burnquist, who skipped THPS3 to take part in ESPN X Games Skateboarding. Create-a-skater will be back, and no doubt there will be some secret riders as well.
While the game will feature a few new moves?spine transfers and skitching were already implemented in the beta versions?the big changes this time around will be structural. The traditional, repetitious career mode is gone; instead of going through each level and accomplishing the same goals with each skater, each level will contain between 15 and 20 goals, which can be completed with any rider you choose and in any order. Each skater will progress through amateur goals until they reach pro status; at that point, a whole new slate of challenges will be unlocked, including a personalized ?capstone goal? based on an important event from that skater?s life. Some challenges will unlock new world objects like ramps and pipes, which you?ll be able to turn on and off per your preference.
Switching Careers
Career mode will start out as a free skate and will only turn into something goal-oriented when you feel like it. Skate up to someone with an arrow over his or her head, and they?ll give you a challenge?a points milestone, icon collection, or something specific to the environment, like saving a sign painter from a deadly shark (you read that right). If you can?t complete a goal, go try something else and come back later. Even in the preview builds, the new method opened up the single-player game dramatically?and of course, THPS4 will support multiplayer online games like its predecessor, too.
Even with a new engine powering the game and larger, more detailed levels, these screens may not look dramatically different from THPS3. However, the changes should become obvious when you play it yourself later this month.
