Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

There are no words to describe the greatness of this game. It's something you have to experience for yourself. Hawk, Burnquist, Rowley, Lasek, Muska, Campbell, Reynolds, Glifburg, Thomas, and Steamer are all here, not to mention all the secret characters you can get, including Officer Dick and Private Carrera. You can break glass in the Warehouse in Woodland Hills, gleam the pools in the School in Miami, grind the escalators at the Mall in New York, pull killer rotations at the Skate Park in Chicago, plant taxi cabs in Downtown Minneapolis, jump river gaps at the Downhill Jam in Phoenix, glide the spines and bowls of the Burnside in Portland, ollie off huge stairs on the Streets of San Francisco, and cruise past captive aliens in Roswell, New Mexico. There's no limit to the # of objects you can plant, grind, slide, ollie, ride, etc.

I know I said this is the best game for N64; maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but for me it is. I also know the Playstation version is better, but I have to do without that for most of the time. The cinematics are half the fun; you can see Hawk pull both the Full Pipe run and his historic 900 at the '99 X Games. See Bob Burnquist pull his famous One Footed Smith, Chad Muska do his little rail grind with his backpack and stereo (forgot the name of the trick), and many more.

The 2 Player mode is also great. You can do Horse (though that kinda sucks), Graffiti, in which you tag every object you can your color, and Trick Attack, in which it's just you and your opponent bustin' out the best s*** possible.

Free Skate allows you to do whatever level you want, with whatever skater you want, for however long as you want. It's genius.

Career Mode is pretty well manufactured: Warehouse, School, and the Mall prep you for your 1st competition: the Skate Park. Next, Downtown and Downhill Jam prep you for #2: the Burnside. Finally, you can hit the mean streets of SF before hittin' the final competition: Roswell. Along the way you can collect medals and tapes for unlocking levels and skaters.

Go and rent this game if you have never played it. And if you do have it, play it as much as you can, 'cause you're playin' a classic!

This game was produced for Game Boy Color, PlayStation, and Nintendo 64. I am reviewing the N64 and PSX versions. It's a game where you can play as your favorite professional skaters. That doesn't save this game from its annoying corniness, though. It may have Minneapolis in it, (close to where I live) but there are no manuals, hugely pixellated graphics, and the control is extremely hard; i.e. if you don't land perfectly, you collapse. It gets better every time there is a new game in the series, so I guess they had to start somewhere, but I think they could have upped the bar just a little bit. All the voices sound the same, except for Elissa Steamer. All the other characters just have the generic "male voice" plugged into them. This is the same on all of the PS1 versions. On the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube releases of THPS3 and 4, each character has his/her own voice. Well, overall 3/5.

THPS1 was released 6 years ago for the N64. It was a great game. You have a ton of pro skaters to skate as. There's career mode where you have a career. You beat goals to collect tapes. Tapes let you advance to the next level. You can unlock secret skaters and new decks(skateboards). In free skate, you can do whatever you want for hours and hours in any level you've unlocked and with any skater you've unlocked. The gameplay gets an 8/10.

The graphics are good for an N64 game, but not very good compared to the graphics on new games. The graphics get a 6.5/10.

Overall, this game is a must-have for any skater who likes video games, or for anybody who likes video games. It gets an 8/10.

FINAL RANKING: Great game!!!

The best graphics at the time, and great gameplay, gave me good times in PLays Station 1