You know this: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is a benchmark. It has defined the standard that the majority of skating titles have aspired to since its release in 1999. Though the core concept of the title has stagnated a little with each subsequent rehash (a rot Neversoft hope to stop Tony Hawk’s Underground), revisiting the PSone original again on a handheld feels… right. Well, almost.
Tony, meet Ollie
Say what you like about the N-Gage, but this is an achievement. After the initial massive disappointment that was Super Monkey Ball, I set the THPS card into the back of the phone with a sense of dread. Expectations were not high. But things quickly changed within five minutes of play as our old mate Tony ollied, kickflipped, railed and generally had a merry old time on his plank in a warehouse.
The prevailing feeling once you start your first game is one of surprise. Tony Hawk N-Gage is surprisingly complete; the frame rate is surprisingly smooth; the animation is surprisingly detailed and the levels are surprisingly all present and correct in their original forms. Couple all this with the licensed music backing up the scrapes and thuds that soundtrack the game, and it all feels surprisingly familiar.