Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

Review

by Jon Thompson

It's always been a challenge to translate next-generation games to the Game Boy Color, and even though it has more processing power than the computers used on the Apollo moon missions, that was probably no comfort to Natsume, who had the task of bringing one of the most popular games of 2000 onto Nintendo's miniature machine. The first handheld version of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was a bit of a misfire, but the second entry in the series is actually fairly representative of the PlayStation title and an enjoyable experience in its own right.

While the gameplay is necessarily stripped down from its big brother, given the Game Boy Color's limited power and two buttons, the game manages to capture the speed and tricks that made the first PlayStation game an overnight sensation. The trick system is paired down, but it is also a surprising challenge to get the hang of, and where it could have been simply frustrating, there is a skillful learning curve that makes it quite satisfying when you can finally pull off the difficult tricks smoothly and with relative frequency. These include the flips, ollies and many other skateboarding favorites. In addition, players can grind off of rails, counters, helicopters and plenty of other objects, building up trick combos as they hop between one grind spot and another.

The seven levels bring two separate perspectives to the table, and each perspective plays significantly different from the other. The side-scrolling levels offer more opportunities to goof off on bowls and ramps, focusing more on straight-up trick action, while the top-down, 3/4-perspective levels offer lots of opportunities for grinds and combos. These levels come with a laundry list of tasks to perform, including finding objects to grind, scoring a set amount of points, hitting a certain combo number, or finding the famous S-K-A-T-E letters. Some of these objectives, especially on the top-down levels, are devilishly tricky, although certainly obtainable, giving the title the challenge it needs to be played over and over again.

The gameplay isn't perfect, however; there are some objectives that are nearly impossible to complete, treading the line between difficult and annoying, and highlighting some design flaws within the levels, as if the developers weren't sure what to add and just threw in something that was nearly impossible rather than well thought out. Also, when you jump onto a grindable object, it grinds automatically rather than giving you an option, which can sometimes turn traversing the level and hitting the combos you want into an aggravating process. And in the perspective modes, it is extremely difficult to tell where your skater is positioned, making it tough to hit the combos you need by jumping from object to object.

The game looks surprisingly good, with the colorful levels representing their various locales with a great amount of detail. The skate parks, with their pipes and ramps, are excellent, and areas like the Hangar and the streets and subways of New York are also top notch. Each of these levels is a unique experience when it comes to visual style, which is impressive in its own right, and the design and animations of the different characters shore up the graphical package. The tricks play out in smooth, detailed fashion, and the characters are modeled uniquely enough so that you can at least tell them apart, which, when considering the screen is about three inches wide, isn't a bad deal.

Of course, the music can't exactly compete with the CD-quality punk and rock tracks from the PlayStation version, but the Game Boy Color tracks are varied, and although they aren't exactly memorable themes, service the game nicely and enhance the exciting attitude it exudes with quirky, funky little tunes.

Credit where credit is due: Those responsible for the first GBC Tony Hawk Pro Skater must have realized the disservice they did to the aura of the title, and have come back with a very decent game. The experience isn't flawless, but it is without a doubt the best skateboarding title on the Game Boy Color to date, and worthy of the 'Master of the 900's' name.