Each decade has its fashions: many pass, some remain. If we think about it, Battle Royale is too: a genre of video game that no one would have thought years ago, which could disappear in the next period but which is now monopolizing the industry. Between 1999 and 2000, while adults were worried about the terrifying Millenium Bug, kids could define themselves as alternative and extreme only if they did Skateboard or BMX: the problem is that in those years it was not easy to find tracks, roads, and above all investing in an item that a kid couldn't afford. The video game of Tony Hawk Pro Skater, released in 1999 (and from there it started for a series of titles made by Neversoft drugs for the time) was the right way out to equalize the heroes of yesteryear. Among all Tony Hawk himself, a boy who flew high on the runway and juggled as if suspended in the air. As mentioned, fashions drop, and skate has lost its magic (obviously it has remained a great niche and extreme sports have also landed on TV), but before it was different. Since 2015, with Pro Skater 5 (To Robomodo, nothing striking), Tony Hawk Pro Skater remained in mothballs, in 2018 Maple Media managed to make a mobile game, but only today, thanks to Vicarious Visions, we have the opportunity to play a new game, and at the same time old, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2.
Still holding the scepter of "remake house", Vicarious Visions re-proposes the old gameplay of Tony Hawk Pro Skater, revolutionizes graphics making it suitable for this generation and not only: the company has in fact found the original Neversoft models (as well as the contacts of the old employees who had worked on them), creating a dip in the past, suitable for today. So Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2, a remake of the first two titles merged into a game available at a budget price, came to life.
Peel your knees
Even if only virtually, going on a skate means peeling your knees: falls are inexorable, and when they happen you will learn, on your virtual skin, how to improve yourself. At this juncture it comes to meet you easy to learn but multifaceted gameplay: The simplest tricks will cost you a couple of tries, but master that Heelflip 720 it will keep you busy for hours. It will also be up to you to figure out how to make the most of the parks: although the objectives and challenges will help you not to despair, the rest will always be about study the best path to make a fantastic show (and maybe share it online, which was definitely utopian 20 years ago).
If in the past the limits of characters and customizations were high (we were talking about CDs and DVDs), this time the knees you will peel will be completely customizable. In the course of the game, in fact, you will accumulate an in-game currency that will allow you to buy any item: in this way you can create your favorite skater, adapting it to the style you want. This is also proposed on tricks, now unlockable together with the characters and completely customizable, allowing the player not only to have an avatar 100% customizable, but also to modify the skaters already present.
Technically, the game ranks I leave without delay: 60 granite frames will accompany you in your evolutions, and a graphics decidedly in step with the times will "rejuvenate" the image you still have in your heart. Music and sounds did very well indeed: especially praise to the soundtrack, which does not fall into the error of re-proposing only the old songs, but also joins them with new, more modern tracks.
A new formula
Those who played the first titles of Tony Hawk Pro Skater will know well how the structure was almost "linear": running and finishing maps, other parts of the story were unlocked (and so on). Vicarious Visions revolutionized that concept, proposing a open world which, from time to time, it will be unlocked by completing objectives. To do this you can play the Tour in Skate, which will lead you to use what you want, with who you want, where you want. In fact, there is to be careful: those numbers next to the title actually turned out to be simple placeholders. The game features characters, skates, maps and anything else taken from the first two chapters, but otherwise it becomes more of a sort of "great work", a title that we hope will be supported with DLC to make it the definitive Tony Hawk Pro Skater. The game, having been released in 2020, can boast the possibilities offered by the greater diffusion of the internet more: this is why they appear global challenges to complete and the return of the fantastic mode of creation of your own park. In this way, you can not only make your own tracks, but even visit those of other users, exponentially expanding the game and adding unlimited maps to the 10 present ones (even if in the customized ones you will not be able to set challenges of any kind).
For the rest, the game features local and online multiplayer: in both cases you can challenge an opponent on timing, tricks and so on, or train in freedom. The game, therefore, proposes one multiplayer section consisting of creativity, challenges and "relaxation", and comes to give a unique and complete package for those looking for a similar experience
The trick to this title is balance: let's not talk about what to keep on the skateboard while trying to jump from one building to another (don't try this at home), but about what you have between old and new. By now Vicarious Visions seems to have found the secret formula of the remakes, knowing how to meticulously dose novelty and classicism. In fact, if the players of the past, lovers of the brand, will find themselves catapulted into a sort of time travel where graphics, style, technique and so on have gone on but the concept has remained the same, the new users who will approach this Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2 will be able to find a good compromise, a sort of introduction, to a genre that increasingly becomes a unicorn in the midst of battle royale, RPG and so on and so forth.
