Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

The premise of bringing back the Tony Hawk series' old-school gameplay has been tougher than it may have seemed to Robomodo, Activision, or even fans. I loved the early titles back in the day, but even such a seemingly airtight premise as an update to what has already been successful is not enough. So much has happened in the intervening years in gaming in general that I want more than this title delivers, which at best is an approximation of the series' gameplay couched in an unimaginative framework.

The Tony Hawk series has been around for over 15 years, and in that time introduced a new genre in gaming. The fluidity of pulling off crazy street and vert tricks, the stunning soundtracks, inventive levels, and rich mechanics made it a true standout franchise. However, like most series, the franchise started to lose steam, with developer Neversoft eventually walking away from its creation. Since then, Chicago-based outfit Robomodo has tried to rejuvenate the franchise.

I didn’t outright hate Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, as it distills a lot of the franchise’s good points into an arcadey modern format. There are flashes of brilliance, but much of that is piggybacking off of the foundation its predecessors have already created. Considering that Activision signed a deal with Tony Hawk for more games a while back that’s set to expire soon, I sincerely hope change is on the horizon if more titles are in the cards.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5’s rare moments of nostalgic joy are drowned out by its abundance of poorly thought out levels, control problems, bugs, and its glaring lack of attitude. It boggles the mind that a $60 game in 2015 can be riddled with so many technical issues.

Cheap skate

A proud legacy follows Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5, a legacy which is pushed through walls, caught in geometry, and smothered by inexcusable anti-consumer nonsense.

A punch to the left eye. A long soak in a bath filled with fire ants. Finding a spoon mixed in with the forks. Watching in horror as a Xenomorph bursts through your ribcage before systematically hunting down and devouring your entire crew.

Even without its technical issues, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, at its core, is a bad game. The graphics are two console generations old, it suffers bad level design, and missions are uninspiring throughout all stages. What makes this whole experience sting even more is the fact that this bad game has so many obvious issues, that even getting through it for the sake of a review was difficult.

Of the many problems that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 suffers from, its failure to learn from previous entries in the series is the worst. The physics on show here raise the question whether anyone at Robomodo has stepped on a skateboard — but other issues ask whether they've even played the earlier games in the series. It's possible that someone unfamiliar with classics like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 could squeeze some enjoyment out of this limp effort, but fans hoping for something of a reunion tour got a dodgy cover band instead.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 should be remembered not just as a bad game, but as an indicator of the industry’s hubris, where games are continuously released in a broken state. It’s a shame, because if there was more time then Robomodo’s efforts may have eventually led to a fantastic skateboarding game. Instead a classic franchise has been tarnished and an audience scorned.