| |
|
H'ok.
THPS6, or Tony's Underground whatever 2.
I saw various articles and reviews that were pretty positive about this game, and I'll admit I'm a sucker for Tony Hawk, and usually trade in the last one to get a shot at some new levels. On reflection, though, I've gotta say I personally found these articles very misguided. I should have seen the warnings, I'm a pretty big fan of both THPS4 and the first "underground" installment, and these people - who were hailing it as the best game since THPS3 - were not. And I wasn't really interested in the game much at all until I read such positive repsonse to it, so I had to find out for myself. It's the same kind of thing that gets in your head that sent you to see the new matrix films...
I kind of wish I could have found out without actually getting the game though...
1. It's obvious from everything surrounding the game that this is peddling - even more so than usual - the kind of Jackass humour that, even if you originally found it funny, everyone else is bored of. Mr. Bam Margera features heavily in it, and lots of the story "tasks" entail you having to do HILARIOUS things.
Normally, I wouldn't mind the supposed "tour hijinx" so much, but I really think it's gone too far now. It's not funny, nor interesting, nor very underground. It feels exactly like a video tour in the world of skateboarding, a stop gap which scrapes in a few moments of entertainment and a lot of dull "antics". And a fair bit of it doesn't involve much skateboarding at all! Great. When the prgrammers learn how to make these side games fun, I might be interested. Remember the tennis in THPS4? It's funny how they can make the skating work so fluidly (until you hit a wall) but the running/driving/whatever else inevitably feels so bad.
2. Story mode - The story mode is woefully short, and there isn't as much to do in as the previous ganes. There are less levels, and they're much smaller (although some might argue this means they're better for combos rather than the previous levels which had got wider and more open). But for me, it just means you spend most of your time banging in to stuff which is too near whenever you come off a rail or flip, getting so frustrated and then eventually culminating in a slam that sees your skater appear at four different random points on the screen - wha? How'd that one slip past? I know the games have often had dodgy collision detection in the past, but wow, that's bad and happens way too much.
3. Classic mode - lots of people are saying the game redeems itself here, by going back to it's roots. But... I'm not seeing it. The small, frustrating, few (6?) new levels from the new story mode and... ooooh, a collection from the first three games. Hurrah, now we can all get back to perfecting those combos we did years ago in old games! Just what I wanted. It's a pity that all these levels feel sort of odd, and heavy... oh, and I guess I'm just in to a tiny bit of reality in these games, and the return to levels full of spacesips/aliens/the undead is kind of boring when I think about all the interesting parks and skatespots that could have gone in to it.
4. The feel of skating seems to be weightier than normal, which is odd because this game supposedly is the one for all the combo freaks. But especially on the older levels, it's really hard to make combos on THPS1 levels that used to be second nature. The THPS team seem to be trying to make it harder and harder to get in to a nollie position on the board with each consecutive game... it might just be that I have a GC pad with less buttons, but I don't wanna have to tap up twice and then R to do a nollie just because you put a stupid "Focus" button on L for... oooo, a Matrix-y slow mo effect! Great.
Oh, and for some reason the amount of actual Pro skaters has been cut down severely. I think there's about 6 or 7, now. Which is ok if you want to play as undead people, shrimp salesman and other assorted (and hilarious!) characters. This also means the only skate videos to unlock are... bails! Great! But you do get a bunch of video ads for the skaters companies represented in the game.
Please, lets have some new ideas, huh? And even if not, don't release what is essentially a stripped down version of the previous game mixed with some more old levels.... oh, and, update the graphics engine, huh? It's been the same FOREVER. If I'd got what I'd expected from a THPS game, I would forget most of my normal frustrations, but when it turns out less... then it's cause for concern, I think.
I'm hoping I can take this back, even though I traded games for it. Randy Hugo, what should I be looking out for on the Cube? Paper Mario, Metroid 2... ? I have no idea when anything is actually available, or what's good now... (not really feeling the pikmin, even though I know I should). |
|
|
