Year released: 2003 (Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox, Gameboy Advance)

Number of players: 2

Neversoft put a spin on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series: you're the main character in the game, trying to reach pro status in story mode, rather than career mode.

Graphics: Even with the gigantic environments, the graphics of this game are fully up to speed, being smooth as ever, if not smoother. Even the pedestrian models are highly detailed, however not as much as the important characters. The pro skaters also don't look quite as good as those of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4.

Sound: All the familiar sounds are back, now slightly enhanced. If you liked the sound of doing special tricks when you played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater back in 1999, you'll be pleased to know that they are back. If you didn't like them and you never did specials just because of the sounds, you'll be pleased to know that the special sounds can be toggled on and off. There's a seventy-six song soundtrack in this game with the same mix as the previous games, so there's bound to be something you like.

Control: If you played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 on the Gamecube and liked being able to spine transfer by pressing Z, then you'll have to adjust to using L+R instead, since the Z button is used for getting off the board. Getting off the board can be used to link tricks and continue combos, and on the Gamecube version, can easily be done at the tap of the Z button, but the Xbox version requires you to tap the black button, which may be hard to get used to if you usually keep your fingers over the standard face buttons.

Challenge: This time around, there are four difficulties to select from: Too Easy, Beginner, Normal, and Sick. If you've played the Tony Hawk games for a while, you'll want to start right on Sick. I beat the game on Normal in two afternoons, so if you're a beginner, start on normal, unless this is the first time you've ever played. Then you might want to start on Beginner. I can't even imagine what Too Easy is like.

Gameplay: This is the best gameplay I've ever experienced for an extreme sports game. I'm surprised Neversoft was able to improve on the gameplay of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, which was amazing. This game's gameplay is even better. That is, until the second you step off your board. The driving and running is an interesting feature, but the running isn't like that of a Super Mario game, and the driving isn't exactly Burnout.

Bottom Line: This is the best Tony Hawk game in the sense of the amount of stuff you can do, but it doesn't directly follow Tony Hawk's Pro Skater/2 in the sense that a ton of the goals have nothing to do with skating. The ones that do are mostly just score challenges. The rest are just driving goals and a few that you do on your feet, but the majority of goals are just meaningless tasks random people ask you to do, such as wallriding down stickers, following dropped cash to a bank robber, and grinding down video cameras. Otherwise, it's one of the best extreme sports games on the market.

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