Okay, once more around the block for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2. Hopefully. I’m going to do this more as a companion review to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 because I feel like it, and this is my site.

I mentioned during my review of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD that it was a pretty stupid remake, considering Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2X exists. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD was a half-assed compilation of the first two games, omitting many of the levels and sucking up the place in general. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2X came out in 2001 for the Xbox, and while it’s largely an upgrade port of THPS2 with touched-up graphics and extra levels, it also contains the stages from the original game.

While I talked with some familiarity of the game, I had never actually played it. I first learned of its existence from a good high school friend, who propped it up with some grandeur. Now, having experienced it, I understand that some of that was kind of exaggerated, but I can still see where that enthusiasm came from.

ONE MORE TIME, I SWEAR

Specifically, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2X really is just an upgrade port of THPS2. It doesn’t really pretend differently, though it’s a bit more of that and less of a compilation than I expected. The graphical touch-up is pretty appreciable. As far as I can tell, the geometry of the levels are the same as they were on the 2000 version. 

The lighting is much better, and the textures have been touched up. However, the textures mostly just have dirt on them. There’s like a granularity on them when you look at them up close. I actually encountered this before on Army Men: Air Combat: The Elite Missions on GameCube, and now I have to wonder if it’s part of a cheap technique for upgrading PS1 textures to next-generation hardware without redrawing them. It’s the exact same dirt layer as The Elite Missions, but since THPS2 didn’t have terrain painted like decorative objects, it’s harder to notice.

One thing that I did look for that my good chum gushed about was “grass with individual blades,” which actually is there. Sort of. It’s a graphical effect, but it’s a convincing way of making lush-looking lawns.

BURLY TRICKS

Circling back to what I said about THPS2X not being a compilation, you first only have access to the THPS2 levels. Once you complete the levels, you unlock the THPS2X career, which is initially three levels (that kind of suck) with goals to complete (one is a competition) but gets expanded with just plain levels (that suck less) for multiplayer.

Then, you unlock the THPS career. It’s here that you more easily notice that the level geometry hasn’t been changed, but, again, the lighting is better, and the textures have been… touched. The objectives are the same as they were on PS1, which is slightly hilarious. By the end of THPS2, you can have your stats maxed out, and they don’t reset for THPS1. So, you get a goal that’s like “Pro Score: 7500,” which you can essentially pull in with one trick in a half-pipe. The competitions aren’t adjusted either, so one good combo will have you at the top. You still need to remember where the valves are in Downhill Jam, but otherwise, THPS1 is essentially there as a “nice to have” rather than part of a compilation.

What would make it really nice to have in 2001, and where the real value is in THPS2X, is the online multiplayer. Obviously, you’d need to do some custom server voodoo to get it to work these days, but when it was first released, it would give you a whole lot of levels to take online. But the point here is that the inclusion of the first game wasn’t built around in the same way it was in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2.

VERT DOMINATION

It’s also worth noting that reverts aren’t implemented in the same way they were in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3. You can’t use them to continue a combo after landing in a quarter-pipe. This means that it’s not there to unbalance the scoring system any more than it was. However, the first two games made Vert extremely powerful. You can, essentially, get in a half-pipe and keep doing 720s (or 900s, even) that include one long grab capped off by a flip trick. A fresh one (since score decays for tricks the more you use them) could net you 30,000 points easily, and when sick scores cap out around 300,000 (working off memory here), you can reach it just by knowing your way around a bowl or half-pipe. It makes competitions a breeze. Likewise, the manual system implemented in THPS2 is included, which makes the THPS1 levels even more of a breeze. Just breezes everywhere. This wouldn’t help you in multiplayer, either. You need big combos for that arena.

You still have to do the other objectives, as well. Those aren’t always breezes. So, I’m not saying that it makes THPS2 way too easy; I’m just saying… What am I saying? It could be worse, I guess? Better? I’m saying that reverts aren’t in the game.

I’m also saying that it’s maybe nice that we now have Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2X is pretty great in a “definitive version of THPS2” kind of way, but not really as a compilation. At the same time, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 is a great game, so that’s praise all the same. It’s sort of an again/more sequel in a series that was annualized for some time, but the features it added were pretty significant, such as the create-a-skater and create-a-park editors. THPS1+2 has a much shinier version of the same thing, but if that gloss is too much for you, THPS2X is for you.

8/10

This review was conducted on an OG Xbox with a disc copy of the game. It was paid for by the author.