I already owned the PS4 version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, but for some reason, I wanted to own it on PC, so I grabbed it on a Steam sale. Five hours later, I was ready to uninstall it again.

That’s not because it was a substandard experience or it wasn’t running correctly on my PC, it was because that’s how long it takes me to get through two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games. This isn’t my first rodeo. For example, only a few (seven!? WTF!?) years ago, I reviewed Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, which was the last time they tried to remake the glory days of the series. That attempt sucked really hard. It was so bad that I was afraid it would be quite a long time before Activision revisited the first two games. It blew its HD load too early.

Thankfully, that turned out to be inaccurate, since here we’re looking at a brand-spanking new (2020!? WTF!?) remake. Most surprisingly, this time, they actually put some effort behind it.

LIGHT SHOW! BANANA RADIO! TURN THAT SHH UP!

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD was a sloppy best-of compilation of some of the best levels from the first two games (and levels from the third were later added). 1+2 begins showing it up by having both games in their entirety. Both games were entirely remade with no noticeable sacrifices or additions. The biggest difference is manuals, which were only added in THPS2, and reverts, which weren’t added until THPS3, are in your repertoire, but you can actually turn them off and play them the way the Gods of Feet intended.

I didn’t do that. Pro Skater without reverts just feels barren.

Another thing that 1+2 has over HD is create-a-skater and create-a-park, which have been mainstays since the second game. I didn’t use create-a-park because I always thought it felt too sterile. Create-a-skater is appreciated, but it left me feeling a bit cold. Everyone has that Unreal Engine 4 look to them, and the fashion choices are so damned boring. Five days of the week, you’ll usually catch me in a tank top and jeans, but that doesn’t mean that’s all I want to wear in a video game. It just means I’m lazy.

DOUBLE-DOUBLE WHIPLESS MOCHACCINO HALF-CAFF

I mentioned in the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD review that I probably wouldn’t notice if the physics were a smidge off in one of these games before instantly contradicting that by saying I noticed something off. I often don’t give myself enough credit. With THPS 1+2 I only notice things slightly being off. It’s less pronounced. Some of the things I noticed might not even be different; it’s not like Tony Hawk games have ever been the most realistic.

If you haven’t played a game in this series, then you must have been born after 2005 or something. When the first game dropped in 1999, it was mind-blowing. I first played it on a friend’s PS1, and it became something that myself and a lot of schoolhood friends fell in love with. I even had a skateboarding phase. I was awful. Really bad. You can still see the scar on my elbow from one of my spills.

Not that THPS has much to do with skateboarding. Each skater launches off the first push like a hurricane just swept them up. They fly up half-pipes like gravity took the day off, and they stick to rails like they’re compelled by static electricity. It’s incredible. I’m not sure how Neversoft figured out the formula back in those days. Skateboarding is often about finding a spot where it looks like you can do something cool and then falling repeatedly while trying to do it. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is about finding letters floating in the air and knocking over street signs. You’re given 10 objectives in each stage, then are provided 2 minutes to accomplish as many as possible. Three of them are score related, one of them is a combo, but aside from that, you might be doing some weird shit.

KICKFLIP MCTWIST (DOES NOT APPEAR IN THIS GAME)

The first two (really, three) Tony Hawk games are pretty similar. After a few levels with a handful of objectives, you participate in competitions where you just try to do the most tricks you can without falling. Diversity matters, but if you can pull off a solid 100k to 200k combo, you have it made.

The manuals (added in THPS2) are important to link together grinds when a rail isn’t available. The reverts (added in THPS3) allow you to land in a half-pipe and transition into a manual, which doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, but works in the context. Back around the first game’s release, we often complained that just doing lots of grinds was cheating because it was really the only way to put together high-multiplier combos. Not a reasonable complaint, but we were kids.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 doesn’t change a whole lot of that. Well, okay, it changes a bunch, but if you haven’t played the first two Tony Hawk games in a while, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is how it always was, barring the Unreal Engine 4 graphics. However, the first game has 10 objectives per level instead of five, as it originally was. The second game also omits the “100% objectives” objective and replaces it with a combo goal that I never, ever had the slightest trouble hitting. It also evens out the scoring so that it makes sense with the updated control scheme.

Surprisingly, the added objectives still work without having to alter the levels much. Sometimes, that’s only because they added lamer objectives like “grind the obvious rail,” but mostly, they just feel like objectives that could have always been there.

NEVER DID WIN NO CHECKERED FLAG, BUT HE NEVER DID COME IN LAST

They’ve also got a lot of soundtrack from the first two games with only a few songs missing. They added a bunch more on top of that, if you’re into that sort of thing. I am. It’s not necessarily my type of music (my picks would probably be too depressing for sugar-powered skateboarding), though I’ve listened to quite a few Primus albums in my day. I really wish Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 was part of this package, since I think it had the best soundtrack. Also, it was a great game.

I can’t remember being bad at THPS, and I also can’t remember when it all clicked for me. These games used to be weekend rentals for me, but now they’re not even an afternoon. But I love them all the same. Well, most of them.

The fact that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 took me back to my late childhood without offending me like THPS HD did is a great sign. The original games hit juuust before high school forever broke me. The fact that I’ve played through it twice now is another good sign. I don’t particularly care about the added multiplayer junk, but it has what I came here for: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 in prettier graphics. It’s not, like, the absolute best possible package I can imagine, but it’s a respectful and well-executed glow-up of one of the all-time greats, which is exactly how it should be.

8/10

This review was conducted on PC using a Steam digital version of the game. It was paid for by the author.