Hands-on with the Tony Hawk’s remaster – time to get excited

It's one of the most hotly anticipated games of the year

When Activision announced that they would be releasing a remaster of the first two Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games earlier this year, fans of the originals collectively lost their minds with excitement. For kids who played video games in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Tony Hawk's series goes down as one of the greatest of all time. The intuitive control system, the incredible variety of the levels and of course those soundtracks combined to make a series of games that remain beloved. Later iterations were quite shit, but that wasn't enough to dampen the excitement surrounding Activision's announcement. The question on everyone's lips though was simple: how will it play? More than 20 years on from the original releases, would Vicarious Visions - the developers responsible for the remaster - be capable of reproducing that style of play that is second nature to so many gamers? Well, after getting hands-on with the demo of the Warehouse level, the answer is definitively yes. From the moment you drop down that slope into the level, the gameplay just feels right. Movement is smooth, and purists will be delighted to know that you can use either the analogue stick or the traditional D-pad to get around. Both work extremely well. Picking up the controller and flying about the level, you feel like you're picking up where you left off all those years ago, but with the added bonus of 20 years' worth of technology to help out. Combos remain as slick as they were before, with elements not present in the original, such as the wall plant, allowing you to run up ludicrously high scores. Visually, the game looks fantastic. The lighting in Warehouse, which is now in a daytime setting, is top notch, and the textures across the level are for the most part perfect. For fans of the more genuine skating experience such as the Skate series, there will be little in this to change their mind about how THPS handles the fundamentals, but for devotees of the series this is everything they've been asking for. It's Tony Hawk's, new and improved for the modern day, and it's every bit as good as we hoped.