Review: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (GBA)

Skateboarders, insane psychopaths with a death wish, or dazzling athletes pushing themselves and their boards in the constant pursuit for airborne nirvana? Well the jury may still be out on the sanity of these professionals, in the meantime however, enjoy all the thrills without the spills and grind your way to perfection courtesy of the Hawkster's latest Gameboy Advance outing.

Anybody who has played the first two installments will find everything present and correct in this latest offering from Activision. The career mode, free skate and tutorial are all included along with the normal roster of skaters (excluding Bob Burnequist who jumped ship to make his game, don't worry though he's back in the fourth outing). You still have the option of visiting the skate shop so you can edit your states and change your boards; in fact if it wasn't for the different levels and the new revert skill, you would swear this was the previous incarnation.

After the manual was introduced was Pro Skater 2 to link tricks together, players demanded more from the skating, step forward the Revert for all your combo needs. When landing back on any half pipe a well timed press of the r shoulder button will cause your skater to switch round ready for another trick, combine this move with a manual and watch your points start mounting up to unbelievable levels. The career mode brings back all the normal tasks you would have played before from collecting letters to spell skate to finding the hidden levels that are hidden carefully throughout the sprawling levels. Speaking of levels, these are impressive affairs with well thought out design and plenty of obstacles to trick and grind off. To begin with it will take your time to make your way around the levels and find all your objectives, however familiarity does bring its own rewards and it wont be long before you find yourself dashing recklessly through the levels desperately trying to get everything within in the 2 minute time limit (and yes it can be done).

Graphically Tony's latest outing is something of a mixed bag, once again the skaters are superbly animated with a fantastic array of tricks that can be pulled off with great flair (the zoom in found in Pro Skater 2 is sadly not included). The skaters may look good, however the levels they inhabit are drab affairs with dull colours and poor detail. They may be instantly recognizable and share a few similarities with their 128 bit cousins, however they are not as faithfully converted as those found in the GBA first outing.

The 3 dimensional isometric affairs are still used although with the new advances in 3 dimensional technologies available for the handheld maybe we will see a new visual style for the next outing. Music is again of a less standard quality than before with the typical rock tunes sounding nowhere near as impressive as the last outing, spot effects are fairly standard and although everything is well suited to the game you cant help but think that things could have been a little better. One thing missing from the previous gameboy outing was a multiplayer faclity; luckily this has been included in the sequel and supports a total of 4 skaters. Tearing around the levels with your mates is fantastic fun and a variety of play styles enhances the enjoyment no end.

Overall the latest in a long string of games (Tony's recently signed to Activision until 2013) is a fun affair that will instantly bring smile to fans of the original games, familiarity can breed contempt and everybody's favourite skater will need to come up with something a bit more original for his next effort.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Darran Jones