Remembering Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

Though the Tony Hawk franchise is pretty much dead these days thanks in no small part to the dismal trainwreck that was Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5, it does one well to return to a simpler time when the Tony Hawk franchise was THE hot selling commodity of the 90's. And to me, no game perfectly encapsulates the fading spirit of the 90's better than Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, one of the best games I ever played.

Christmas of 2001 was when my mom bought me and my little brothers a Playstation 2. My little brother specifically asked for this game, which before I had never even heard of. It made sense, though, as he was the more social brother of mine, and he had several friends who told him about the game. Anyway, we got this game on Christmas 2001. We hooked it up, and God we couldn't put it down!

I think what got us hooked into the game first was the sound track. And let me tell you, that sound track was FIRE! A perfect blend of punk, hip hop, and rock and roll guaranteed to give you at least ONE song you'll love! Songs by Alien Ant Farm (who were getting pretty big at the time thanks to their rendition of Smooth Criminal), The Ramones (Blitzkrieg Pop, one of the best songs I had ever heard) Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Redman; as well as smaller names like Adolescents, Del the Funky Homosapien,  among others. This combination of easily recognizable mainstream names and slightly obscure names made for a sound track that was memorable, infectious, and GODDAMN WAS IT FIRE!

My personal favorite songs were Blitkrieg Pop, Amoeba, Not the Same, and If you Must. I had those songs looped every time I played. Man, I couldn't get enough of that sound track; sometimes I'd pop in the game, skate around freely, and just listen to that music for hours on end! This was before Youtube, of course!

So great was the sound track, in fact, that over a decade and a half later, I'm STILL listening to it! I'm still looking up Blitzkrieg Pop (which got a significant boost thanks to a certain movie starring that web slinger), If you Must, and so on. In fact, half the time I look at the comments on those videos, which game is the one that gets referenced? THIS GAME!

However a sound track alone is not enough to make a game memorable, no matter how FIRE it is. Gameplay is perennially the greatest measure to how good a game is. In this regard, THPS3 is forever insured a spot on the list of the greatest games of all time.

It's not enough that the game runs smoothly; it's that the gameplay is both simple, intuitive, but FUN. Each special move can be done with an intrinsic, but easy to pull off, combination of button presses that, save for a few complex moves, are actually insanely easy to do. The game seemingly took a page from the Street Fighter 2 book on how to execute special skills: make it easy, make it rewarding.

The special moves looked AMAZING back in the day, and in many respects they still do. It's STILL satisfying to perform kickflips and grinds on all these levels, from the Airport to Suburbia, from Rio to Tokyo.

That's another plus for the game: the levels! Each and every level had something memorable about it, something that made the gamer go "man, I'll come back and skate here later!" Each level was so uniquely designed that it's easy to forget that most of them where just a collection of differently placed rails, empty pools, and half pipes! To give an example, the stage Canada is a beautifully frosty level with empty pools and rails galore. The various differences in elevation allowed this level to feel truly three dimensional, different. Having it follow up the Foundry level, an indoor level that's 2 floors high, was a stroke of brilliance: the contrast between indoors and outdoors is startling at first, and refreshing as the game goes on.

What else can I even say about this game? It's a PERFECT GAME! IT'S PERFECTION! Every game in the series is literally trying, and often FAILING, to recapture what made this game so golden! It's one of the highest rated PS2 games for a DAMN GOOD REASON!

If Tony Hawk and Neversoft wanted to make more money out of the franchise, the best thing they could have done was simply remake this game with updated graphics. Literally, that's all they needed to do. The same game, prettier graphics. Why? Because you just can't improve PERFECTION. One of the greatest games I've ever played, one of the greatest games EVER!