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"Tony Hawk comes to the dead N64. But is it any good?"

Almost a year after Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 was released for practically every current system, it pops out for the Nintendo 64. But is it worth even a second of your time? Was for me. But rather repetitive, it was.

This game is an exact port of the PSX version, so I may say something about it, rather than the N64. Confusing, maybe. But it will help me explain the problems.

CONTROLS
Wonderful. Just like its predecessors. Tight. Need I say more? But the one flaw, which is player error, is to do a combo, you may have to hit the D-pad left, then right, then the trick button. If you do it wrong, it will read it as just right on the D-pad, then the trick button. That will be a totally different trick. But this is easy to get past with a little practice.

GAMEPLAY
Fun. At first. A little too easy though.

Skating through the levels, racking up points from totally insane tricks, and completing objectives. This is great, unless you are using cheats or a guide, since that will take away from the whole experience. Finding out how to do the objectives is half the fun!

In each non-competition level, you have to get a certain number of points for 3 of the objectives, High Score, Pro Score, and Sick Score. Sick Score is the hardest one.

When I played THPS1, it was very difficult to get so many points before my two minutes was up.
Later on, when the second installment, THPS2 appeared, I sucked it all in. They had added the manual. Or in simpler terms, a wheelie. This let you carry on your combos across flat ground, so you could to to another rail, and grind for some more points. It was getting to be too easy.
Now, with THPS3 here, they have given it the revert. A landing trick, in which you spin around from getting air off of a vert. From the revert you could go into a manual. You could take the combo to another vert, and revert down that too, or take it to a rail, or... whatever. The fact is, it has become to easy to make monstrous combos. As long as you are decent at balancing your grinds and manuals, you'll have those objectives completed in no time.

The other objectives are not always so easy. But not difficult enough for you to throw your beloved controller through the television. They just require a little practice.

GRAPHICS
Great. The 'fog' is far enough out of your way. Few if any slowdowns. Not as 'pixelly' as the PSX which it was ported from.

MUSIC
*BARF*
Sorry there.
They had to hack up these songs so it would all fit on to the cartridge. Would you rather have no music at all? Okay, bad question when so many people have their own music they can play. The music is decent though. its in between ''I can stand it'' and ''good''.

SOUND
Same as THPS2. Same grunts when you slam your skater into a wall. Same noise when you roll over the grass. There are a few new sounds though, at least.

MULTIPLAYER
I think I'm going to throw up again...
I was bored out of my mind from doing the same old thing... trying to beat the game with every single skater... so I decided to pop my second controller in and see what it is like. Of course, no one else wanted to play, so I was controlling two skaters at once... Anyway, I went into Foundry, and nearly passed out. I saw a sight I was never supposed to see... like seeing your mom shower. It's just wrong in so many ways. They slashed up the first level! How could they do such a... bad... crime! The hacking they did wasn't TOO bad... but it gets worse. I went into Tokyo, fearing the worst. They had taken away the two loops. The one things I loved so much... gone. And for what? So they could make the little lights scattered all over the level still blink in 4 different colors!

The 5 different playable game in multiplayer have not changed since THPS2. Free Skate, Horse (although real skaters know, it's called Skate), Tag, Trick Attack, and Graffiti.

REPLAYABILITY
Perfect. great. Yipee.
The Tony Hawk series is known for its replayability. This one is no exception.

To access absolutely every thing this game has to offer, you must beat the game 100% with every character (that's a lot). That means all the pros you start out with, a created skater, and the secret skaters. I can do 100% with someone in about an hour, now. I've done it so much. The problem is, this becomes a chore.

Gaps. Finding all those little gaps scattered amongst the levels. Pretty good... annoying at times, though...

There are many more, but lets get to me favorite. Free Skate. Whoever invented this mode is a genius. You can skate around any level of your choice for as long as you want, busting out as many tricks as you can... enjoying yourself. Pure fun.

JUST STUFF TO TELL YOU
The park editor was only slightly updated from THPS2. Now, when you set the theme, it also changes the look of the ramps, rails, and all the other things you dropped into it. They replaced two of the themes with two different ones. Just giving it a bit of change.

The Create a Skater mode has hardly changed at all, unfortunately. The only change I noticed was them lowering the amount of shoes to choose from, and changing the tattoos you can give your skater. May be others changes, but not really any step up in this.

Cars. In the newer systems, they have cars and people. I wasn't expecting to see people at all, and I didn't. But I was hoping for cars. In the new systems, if the cars hit you, they react. I was at least hoping for a car that doesn't stop when you get nailed, like in the previous THPS games. But no... no moving vehicles...

I hear the game Grind Session is bad. But, it is a skateboarding game. And Neversoft and friends were all too busy working on the THPS3 for the new systems to work on the PSX's. They gave the job to Shaba, makers of Grind Session. I blame that factor for some of the problems. Few of the cheats are different from the ones you earned in THPS2, for instance. So what they did to the PSX version... they did to the N64 version, unknowingly.

There are no video clips you can earn. But what were you expecting? This is the N64!

TOTAL SCORE (out of 10)
Controls : 9
Gameplay : 9
Graphics : 8
Music : 6
Sound : 8
Multiplayer : 6
Replayability : 10
Total : 8

BUY, RENT, OR IGNORE?
If you fell in love with the original THPS games, buy this.
If you own a newer system (GCN, PS2, XBOX), rent this, just to see it. Why? Many things have changed. The levels, for one. Objectives, for another.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/02, Updated 08/31/02