Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (Activision) - Version Tested: Playstation 4 Pro

THPS 1 + 2 Remastered Box

It's quite something to be a modern gamer, realising that you've been twiddling your thumbs since the mid 1970s and are still playing games well beyond the age that normal human adults are supposed to still play anything other than hooky from work. 

I didn't want to ramble into some hideous "New Games Journalism" review of "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2" by talking up the original games. Back when they first appeared on the original Playstation I ignored them, and in fact didn't actually get into them until I moved into a shared house - and THPS1 became THE game to settle arguments. Who would clean the loos? A round of THPS1 would decide. Who would do the washing up? Whose turn was it to put the bins out? 

Sadly I did a lot of washing up and loo cleaning - my skills were awful (I was moderately better at Mario Karts - the other means of settling the same arguments before everyone saw sense and drew up a proper cleaning rota) but I remember the hours lost to THPS1 when I finally did get my act together and bought a copy. 

About as much of an accurate representation of Skareboarding as Fifa is of footie, THPS1 + 2 remastered captures the exact essence of the original games, the all important "Just one more go" and the divine frustration of coming within 5 points of a "Pro" score on a level. Oh my yes, the curses, the thrown joypads (actually does anyone really do this? I mean I don't because for the most part, joypads for modern consoles cost a bloody arm and a leg!) But above all the gaping dappy smile that played across my face when I realised that this was the sort of reboot / remaster everyone wanted. The original games, nothing taken away but a whole lot added. Polished visuals, better animation, sure - but the same gameplay, the same levels, hell even the same music (which must have cost Activision a pretty penny to relicense) and at the top of it all the benign smiling face of Mr Hawk realising that he'd been away from games for too long, back where he belongs at the top of the Skateboarding game roster (well, until Skate 4 comes out, of course!)

Tootling round the Warehouse level from the first game for the first time in this remaster, I realised just how slick things were now - and how my old bones would have to adapt to the game feeling about 1000 percent faster than it used to be (naturally, the old PS1 didn't have the RAM or the Processing Power to dish up slick 30 frames per second action). 

The other thing that fuddled me at first was far too many years of playing Skate 3 and getting used to the shoulder button and twin stick methods of performing tricks in that game. Suddenly realising that you're back to face-button presses and (shudder) using the cross pad for trick finesse was a real re-education (but of course I realised that back when I first encountered this game, my original Playstation controllers didn't even have analogue sticks!)

After about a week of play something happened. Something clicked. The frustration of watching my daughter play this (and just knock tricks out with next to no effort) gave way to me suddenly gelling with the game a bit more, understanding how to eke out those last few points from a combo, chaining tricks together and making good use of multiple grinds to rack up half decent scores. 

The thing that delighted me the most wasn't the amazing sense of nostalgia that this game elicits, it's the fact that this is a modern game (albeit a reboot, sure) by a modern publisher where you pay your forty quid or so (prices vary depending on where you get it, of course!) and there's actually a game in the box rather than a placeholder for later content downloads. In fact there's so much to do and explore at first that it feels almost too daunting - years of being served up hollow shells of games means that THPS12RM instantly has a metric ton of replay value and it's sure to be glued into my console for quite some considerable time. 

I've loved every minute of this so far. It's punishingly hard at times, but once you begin to understand how things work (and how to land a (*&$(*Y&£( trick!) you'll really begin to appreciate the work that's gone into this, and start to yearn for other games to be given the reboot treatment. 

In fact, to that end I dug the Xbox 360 out for a look back at Tony Hawk's Project 8 - the last TH game I bought - for a bit of a replay, realising that it was way better than I remembered so if Activision really wanted to mine this thing for all its worth, there's plenty of 'coal' in that mine before they hit the shale (my daughter couldn't believe there was a TH game that actually came with its own skateboard controller - in fact I had to google to make sure I hadn't imagined it!)

I wonder how many broken TVs / limbs that one caused!

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 Remastered is available now from Activision.