First to start the Summer of Arcade this year is a HD remake of the one and only Tony Hawks Pro Skater. You can pick this up for a measly 1200 MSP.

First of all it is worth pointing out that there is a great deal of content that isn’t new, but we expected that as like we said this is a HD remake. There are seven levels exactly how you remember them including the challenges which we were made to complete 12 years ago. Its all about high scores, collecting objects and smashing collectables. However, there is a brand new single player mode called Hawkman which is like a breathe of fresh air which adds new life to the old bones of Tony Hawks Pro Skater which we all love. Hawkman is a fun little game which reminds us of Pac Man,in each level there is a line of pellets scattered around the place. You collect pellets by doing the appropriate trick through each one, the goal being to clear the entire level as quickly as possible. Yellow pellets require grinds, red pellets are air tricks and greens need manuals.

Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD also now comes with an Online component which sees up to four players skate it out on any of the seven maps across a variety of game modes which include favorites such as Free skate, Big Head and trick attack. While playing on your own is fun , there is nothing better than taking your skills online and prove your number one.

As the Title suggests Tony Hawks Pro Skater is now done in HD and it looks great. If you remember playing this when it was originally released when HD was just a dream then you would that the graphics are not needed for a great game but it makes a nice addition and in my eyes is a great reason to put this classic in front of fresh young eyes.

So how does it hold up? Well if your looking for a Skate simulator I would personally recommend you try out the Skate series by EA. However, Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD still manages to be a great arcade classic as even in todays day and age full of AAA rated titles it manages to be as punishing yet manageable as the priginal game. You will still see yourself rushing around trying to beat that Pro Score or finding the word S-K-A-T-E which are hidden around the level in the 2 minutes alloted time. Will you get fed up or frustrated while playing this? Yep, but thats the beauty of it. You may see yourself restarting your run many times and losing your cool as you just cant seem to reach that top score, or find all of the DVDs but every time it will push you further and further and eventually smash that challenge.

The online 4 player multiplayer is a great addition as there is something quite stunning about being able to skate around with 3 of your friends and share your love of Tony Hawks. However, local multiplayer seems to of been removed for some strange reason which is the only problem I can see in terms of game play. We would of loved to see more levels as 7 levels just doesn’t seem enough as the campaign will only take you a few hours to complete even if your aiming to 100% it.

Overall Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD is an excellent reminder of how things used to be where games didn’t have to have stunning graphics to be in the charts, where developers created games which were simple in concept but supplied hours of fun. Tony Hawks is an almost perfect remake that a brand new audience should be happy to discover and enjoy.

And from all that we are going to give Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD 7 out of 10.