Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 – YES!

(please note that this post is from my blog that can be found here – https://k1ngj1m.wordpress.com all views and opinions that are expressed are my own)

After 13 years 90s kids and gamers can rejoice… Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 is back, and it’s gonna be awesome!… Ok might be a bit apprehensive over the “review statement”, but I loved this game growing up, and I know I’m not the only one – right??

In November 2014 the bird man announced that there was a Pro Skater sequel in the works. Now, as with anticipation of the Shred Session mobile game that was pulled from markets after a soft-launch in 2014 – It felt like I wasn’t the only one who was thinking that this would just be another HD version of the game for the mobile platform *sigh*…

Move to Jan 2015, at Sony’s CES we find out that this is to be a new console game and would be coming to PS4 (and of course to Xbox One) – and finally mine, every 90s kid and the Internets (metaphorical) ears pricked up and took notice.

This is one of my highly anticipated games of this year and I’d like to tell you why;

• Firstly I grew up with this game, it brings back so many good memories and being a guy who really isn’t into many sports or more so couldn’t relate to them – I actually found a connection to skating in general and this game series was just my jam.

• THPS2 was the first game that I actually beat – as in 100%’d and can announce this was a familiar occurrence that continued ‘till Project 8, and subsequently I was super proud ;) Usually when going to a friend’s house we would end up playing FIFA, and I would get my ass handed to me – and then we would get the latest THPS out, and it was such a different story :D

• Soundtrack – Lets be honest, its one of the best soundtracks to any video game series. Of course each series is just one massive compilation album of Rock, Metal, Punk and Hip-Hop music, which is great… When growing up, especially in High School, music is a big part of your culture, and you suddenly find yourself in little groups/clicks of friends who like the same kind of music and introduce you to bands – now this was the first game that really had a big mix of tracks from lots of bands and artists that you’d never normally hear of unless you go looking for them. And on another note they’re all up-beat/feel good songs. These collections of tracks can be easily found on loads of streaming platforms these days, and as soon as you press play on the playlist your instantly reminded of sun, fun and skating down the board walks

Ok honestly, I could go on and on about how much I love this series, and yet even though the THUG and American Wasteland series didn’t get too much praise or isn’t drawn upon it still had the elements that made the games memorable – let’s be honest THUG 2 was awesome, yeah the story was sketchy but it was fun and who didn’t love teaming up with Team Hawk and going head to head with Bam Margera in a “Jackass” style competition – letting your inner rebel coming out \m/.

Now with E3 out-of-the-way, Activision, Robomodo (developer/studio) and Tony himself have been doing the rounds on the internet and brought some behind the scenes footage and a few new features to the series to make it stand out, and bring it up to date – such as a bunch of online features, a new “create-a-park” system, and even projectiles… not quite sure where they’re going with this, but I’m game – as well as keeping with the traditional Pro Skater mechanics and style. This will bring the franchise to a new audience and re-introduce 90s kids to the new skating era – one that I’m pretty stoked for.

Check out the official behind-the-scenes trailer below

So in summary – I’m not going to do the traditional skating pun’s of “Tony Hawk kick flipping his way in to our hearts” or “Can’t wait to Ollie my way back into this game” – as that’s just lame… however what I will say is – roll on September 29th.

(Oh hell, sorry)

Jim.