One of the best memories of my freshman year in college was not going to class; instead it was spending the day sitting in my dorm with my buddies playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. At the time, the game was so fresh and so….HIP, for lack of a better term. It had fantastic gameplay and a killer soundtrack that just bled “cool.” 
 
Fast forward nearly 13 years later, and the extreme sports genre that THPS gave birth to seems a bit stale. Extreme sports games were coming out year after year, sometime even multiple-titles within a year and like the now defunct Guitar Hero, innovation was lacking.
 
Could it be time for a comeback, however? If so, what better way to usher in a new era of extreme sports games than with the father of them all, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
 
We sit down with Lead Designer Patrick Dwyer of Robomodo to discuss the upcoming Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD.
 
Gaming Examiner: The gaming landscape today has all but seen the death of the skating genre….or even to an even larger degree, the extreme sports genre as a whole. What led to the decision to resurrect what is basically the father of extreme sports games?
 
Patrick Dwyer: Tony and us (Robomodo) have been sending this proposal to ATVI ever since we started working with Tony. Our last proposal was to do it for XBLA and PSN. ATVI thought the timing was right and so we were off and running. As for the extreme sports genre, I think the genre suffered a little bit from trying to be something it isn’t. Extreme Sports games are all about gameplay. Story and Cutscenes don’t really fit. That is what was so great about the early Pro Skater titles, you just skate in a level and have fun. The only reason was because you wanted to get a high score.
 
GE: THPS HD is basically a “best of” mash up of the first two games. Will there be room for add-on content such as new levels, skaters, etc.?
 
PD: Absolutely. We currently have a Facebook page where people can vote on which levels from THPS 3 to include for DLC. Tony will take a look at what the fans want and decide what we put in. This game is all about the fans. So everything goes through them first. Then Tony makes the final say so.
 
GE: How did you come to the decision on what to include for the game? The first two entries in the THPS franchise are chock full of classic stages that it must have been difficult to weed out the “best” of the bunch.
 
PD: Tony sent out a tweet about what were people’s favorite levels from 1 and 2. We took that list and that was our level list. Tony added Downhill Jam as that is his favorite level. So it was the fans and Tony that decided. For the gameplay side of things, we felt that THPS 2 had that best gameplay. So we took all of those mechanics and polished them up for THPS HD.
 
GE: You have been pretty open about THPS HD not just being a straight port. What changes and tweaks are you making to the game to differentiate it from the original?
 
PD: Our goal was to create the game that people remember. When you think back to your memories of playing THPS 2, the levels looked awesome, the animations were perfect, and the controls were spot on. However, if you go back and play it now, you would be surprised about how those aspects actually were. The levels are exact geo replications of the originals. But all of the textures have been redone. VFX has been added. Dust Particles emit when landing in the warehouse. Sparks fly out when grinding metal. All of the animations were redone. The skater now celebrates after landing a big combo. Or actually looks like he shifts his weight when he loses his balance. For the controls, we tweaked and tuned them to just be better. Every mechanic went through several different tweaks to make it better from the balance meters to the spin controls.
 
GE: Is this remake an attempt to jump-start the skating genre again with future titles planned, or is this more of a one-off that is meant to recapture some long lost nostalgia?
 
PD: We are fans of the original Pro Skater series. They are some of the greatest games of all time. We thought it was time to bring them back to the old audience that forgot how great they were and introduce them to new Players who never played them.
 
GE: THPS HD is currently slated for a digital release on PSN and XBLA. Any plans to bring it to handheld systems? The Vita comes to mind…What about a PC release?
 
PD: We would love to bring this game to every platform. I know someone started a petition to get THPS-HD on PC. So if the fans make enough noise, I am sure ATVI won’t ignore them.
 
GE: Any surprises included in the game? I seem to remember Spider-Man being a playable character at one point….
 
PD: That was part of the charm of the original games so we had to have those in there. But we also added our own little flavor as well. For example: everyone remembers Ollie the Magic Bum from the Venice Beach Level. So we have him, and we added his brother Boneless.
 
GE: A number of current pros have been announced as playable characters. Will they be presented alongside the original “cast” or, like the levels, will it be more of a “best of?”
 
PD: Here is the list of Pro Skaters in the game:
 
– Tony Hawk
– Rodney Mullen
– Lyn-z A.H. Pastrana
– Eric Koston
– Andrew Reynolds
– Nyjah Huston
– Chris Cole
– Riley Hawk
 
GE: What online features can we look forward to?
 
PD: We haven’t announced those yet. But we will have at least 4 different online modes. Expect your favorites mixed in with some new ones. We also have Online leaderboards to track everyone’s million point scores.
 
GE: Since this is a combo of the first two THPS games, will the expanded moveset from the second be available in the remake? Or are we dealing with only the moves from the first game?
 
PD: The gameplay is based off of THPS2. So all the moves in that game with additional special moves that we created.
 
Thank you to Patrick Dwyer and Robomodo for the interview! THPS HD is shaping up to be a pretty meaty tribute to one of the most beloved games of all time. THPS HD will be part of the Summer of Arcade, and a release date will be announced as soon as it’s available. Currently, the game is slated to release with a price point of $15.
 

11 Jun 2024 by Tony Hsieh Contact email , twitter more news Featured News, Gaming Headlines, Interviews, Screens