Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 : Web Wombat: Games

With AC/DC playing the title song, the intro is enough to get most phat sk8ers foaming at the mouth: I'll never tire of seeing Tony perform his 900 in full motion DVD video.

Like the games before it, Tony Hawk 4 lets you pick one of fourteen professional skaters, such as the Hawkmeister himself, rockin' Steve Caballero, the hard grinding Jamie Thomas. Of course, you can also create a custom player, which hours of fun in and of itself.

Again, the basic premise is the same as the other games before it: Complete goals in order to progress through the increasingly intriguing levels. From the main menu, you can go for a free skate, a single session, take part in a number of 2-player games (with a few new modes to boot), create your own skate park, system link for über-fun or hit the career mode.

There is also the Xbox Live! online aspect to the game, but as the service isn't yet operational here in Australia, we couldn't test it. It sounds sweet though, with online tournaments already kicking off.

Kareem "Tha Dreem" Campbell goes for the transfer

We asked Old Man GameBlitz for a return trip to the States and $5000 spending money, but turns out he'd spent the last of the company's money on Enron shares...

We had a chat to Kristy from Activision late in 2002 and she said that when the service is launched in Australia, Tony 4 will work with it, so from that you can assume the same will happen for European and Asian territories.

Anyway, back to the single-player game, and from the outset it's great to see that there are plenty of new moves in Tony Hawk 4, the most notable being the ability to skitch cars.

Skate + hitch. That is, grab onto the back of moving vehicles to gain shitloads of speed or to beat specific goals.

You can also properly grind moving objects, such as cars and perform spine transfers over adjoined quarter pipes, which is a thoughtful addition to the game that will have the purists grinning from ear to ear.

There's heaps of new flatland moves, which add a whole extra dimension to combos, and when you do a hand plant or similar stall, you can even mash the grab and kickflip buttons to pull off a number of funky tweaks. Truly, the extra moves alone warrant the purchase - but wait, there's more…

Unlike all the Hawk titles before it, No. 4 moves outside the square and offers a more logical and gratifying career mode.

Instead of getting 2:00 minutes to power through levels and complete goals, once you've picked a level, you can skate around with no time on the clock.

Kids -- don't try this at home...
There's not nearly enough room!!

This not only allows you to survey the levels and collect cash, but it also gives beginners a stress-free environment to hone their skills.

Most levels have about 14 goals each, and talking other people scattered around the levels accesses these. This way you're given a set amount of time, which differs from goal to goal, to complete said tasks.

You can also pause the game and select 'Restart last goal' which is another time-saving bonus. Neversoft - we salute you!

The goals are much more innovative this time around, too. Collecting the letters to form SKATE, getting high scores and finding four or five specific objects are still there, but you'll also have COMBO goals, where you have to collect the letters during one linked trick.

It can get really tough in the later levels, but it's rather thrilling and ensures players will have to be a specific skill to pass the goal. In general, the goals are harder than past titles, yet much more engrossing and ultimately more fun. There's also a few bonus missions such as playing tennis and dodging the monkey poo hurled at you by, um, monkeys.

All up there are some 190 goals, but some of these won't be initially available. This is where the fascinating Pro mode comes into play -- another feather in Tony 4's hat. When you reach a certain level - that is, beating a number of goals - you get Pro challenges.

These are devilishly difficult, but add even more lengevity to an already massive game. Instead of having 16 goals per level, it almost doubles that in some cases.

The nose manual - good for nose researchers

Suffice to say, this is one helluva big game and it still boggles the mind as to how Neversoft came up with all the new features. Maybe they're just geniuses - or is that genuii?

Gameplay wise, things haven't changed a whole lot. The basic grind and manual tricks are there for the taking, but the addition of spine transfers, skitching and the flatland moves combine to add a whole new level of interaction.

The game is definitely smoother on all platforms and for me it worked out better. I found busting out 250,000-point combos much easier than in Tony 3.

Some of the guys about the office preferred the slightly slower speed of Tony 3, but they're all knob-shanks, so lets not worry about it (hi guys!!).

This time around you still get cash, but you can't spend it on stat points. Instead, you increase your chosen skaters stats by beating goals - simple as that.

Cash can spent on unlocking secret levels, adding really wacky outfits to the custom skater creation toolset and also buying new skaters, cheat codes, decks, movies and even special tricks.

Graphically, things have stepped up a notch, with higher quality textures, smoother frame-rates, better draw-in range and some very smooth motion capture.

Included this time around are replays, which look stunning as the camera can be panned around. They're also great for showing off you're super-high-scoring trickery, particularly in slow motion.

That's a dandy-looking airwalk, to be sure!

The game is chock full of bonus videos, cheats, secret areas, humour and did I mention it's big? Easily the best Tony in the series, it's also the biggest, offering longevity rarely seen in action sports titles today.

The revised skate park editor has a bigger toolset and, in general, is a big step above that found in Tony 3.

Is there anything wrong with the game? Fundamentally, no. The only thing that may put gamers off is the frustration of not being able to pass goals, but hey, practice makes perfect.

One of the best things about the Hawk game engine, here and in the past, is that it rewards creative players. If you keep performing the same crooked grind interspersed with kick-flips, the scores won't be worth diddly.

With all the extra moves, tweeks and tricks, it's amazing how creative combos can be, and you can even add skitches into them if you're good enough.

Tony 4 is for all gamers, whether you only buy one game a year, or fifty of them. It really is quite mind-numbing how a series can progressively improve on what was, in the beginning, an almost flawless formula. Even the choice of music has progressed and suits the style gameplay better than ever before.

It's even scarier to think if, or even when the Hawk videogaming juggernaut will end - will we be playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 17 in 2020? I sure hope so.

Game: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
System: Xbox
Players: 1-4
Memory Card: Yes
Online: Yes
Developer: Neversoft
Distributor: Activision

Rating: 90%

(Ratings Key/Explantion)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 is on the shelves now.

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