I’ll be sincere, I didn’t like very much the graphic style of the preceding episodes on Psx. Yes, the framerate and the environments were decent for a system like the old Psx, but the characters didn’t convince me, and the atmosphere was overall rather dull.
For this reason I was pleased to see the very good graphics of THPS 3. The characters are built with more than 2,000 polygons, detailed in every part of their body, and they are smoothly animated. When you perform a series of tricks, the animations are finely linked the one to the other, and the overall effect is just amazing.
The environments are huge, detailed, rich in colors and filled with many special effects, like the amazing earthquake you will experience in the Los Angeles Area. The textures’quality is usually very good, and there are a lot of non-playable interactive characters that populate each levels.
The game runs most of the time at 60 fps, even if here and there little slowdowns and minor glitches may occur. But this really is an enormous game, and overall, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is surely the best looking episode of the series on any console.
The series is famous for its great soundtracks, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 is no exception. The soundtrack is a mix of songs from old and more recent bands. Motorhead, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Alien Ant Farm, Redman, Del the Funky Homosapien, are just an example of the bands that are featured in the U.S. version. There are different genres of music, from Rap to Hard Rock, but on my opinion the game still sounds a bit too much like one of those “alternative” shows on MTV. Fortunately, you can create a playlist of the songs you prefer.
Leaving aside a few annoying bystanders’ voices, the sound effects are great and contribute to create the unique atmosphere of this wonderful title.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 is one of those games that could ruin your social life forever. You’ll play this title for days and days, weeks and weeks. First of all, in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 you have to beat the game a lot of times to unlock all the hidden characters and levels. Then, there are five different two player modes. You can create your own skater and wonderful parks. And last but not least, THPS3 is one of the most exciting online games of all times. Is this enough?
