Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 was one of the first games I remember playing as a kid. I played it a LOT. I played every entry a lot up until THUG2. When I found out there was a good remaster of 1 and 2, but that it was an Epic Games exclusive, I was gutted. I had hoped it was only a timed exclusive, and boy was I glad that turned out to be the case. I have never hit "Add to Cart" this fast in my life, especially since it had a -50% release discount.

The game looks gorgeous and all the classic tunes are back for that sweet, sweet nostalgia hit. There is really no way anyone could knock the technical aspects and the presentation of this remaster, it's superb. It also runs well, I get well over 120 FPS with an 8700K and 1080 Ti, which show their age in new titles, but run this one just fine.

The gameplay feels fairly consistent with what made THPS1 and 2 the series great. My favourite thing is that it does what every good modern remaster should, it gives you options on how oldschool or modernized you want the game. For example, if you're after the "pure" THPS1/2 experience, there's a "Game Mods" menu that allows you to disable all the changes and improvements the series made over the years like Manuals, Reverts and Wallplants, and there are settings for both THPS1 (no Manuals, Reverts, Wallplants, or mid-trick changing) and THPS2 (same but with Manuals enabled). I do believe it unfortunately disables some of the in-game achievements (although some of them are virtually impossible with these restrictions) though. But if you want, you can just boot up the game and go ham with all the stuff that has made THPS great over the years.

The levels feel like their original counterparts - I admit I never played THPS1 so I can't speak for those, but the THPS2 levels feel exactly as they should and the objectives are 1:1 with the old games (which also means I 100% THPS2 in like 2 hours, lol).

The Create-A-Skater feels... odd, like the faces on offer all look like some sort of weird androgenous, vaguely Asian person, I'm not in love with them but since you spend most of your time staring at your skater's back, it's not a huge deal. I like the idea of in-game purchases (with in-game currency, no MTX as far as I can tell) because it's a small, but effective incentive to complete the game's many challenges. That said, I feel like previous entries like THUG2 had a vastly superior CAS interface, but then again, this is a remaster of THPS1 and 2, not THUG, so I can't give them too much of a hard time.

All in all, I'm glad this game is finally available on Steam, I'm glad it runs well and I'm glad the gameplay feels right, even though I have a feeling the most dedicated purist fans will probably find something to fault. To me, it's great and I will be enjoying every second of it!

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 was one of the first games I remember playing as a kid. I played it a LOT. I played every entry a lot up until THUG2. When I found out there was a good remaster of 1 and 2, but that it was an Epic Games exclusive, I was gutted. I had hoped it was only a [i]timed[/i] exclusive, and boy was I glad that turned out to be the case. I have never hit "Add to Cart" this fast in my life, especially since it had a -50% release discount. The game looks gorgeous and all the classic tunes are back for that sweet, sweet nostalgia hit. There is really no way anyone could knock the technical aspects and the presentation of this remaster, it's superb. It also runs well, I get well over 120 FPS with an 8700K and 1080 Ti, which show their age in new titles, but run this one just fine. The gameplay feels fairly consistent with what made THPS1 and 2 the series great. My favourite thing is that it does what every good modern remaster should, it gives you options on how oldschool or modernized you want the game. For example, if you're after the "pure" THPS1/2 experience, there's a "Game Mods" menu that allows you to disable all the changes and improvements the series made over the years like Manuals, Reverts and Wallplants, and there are settings for both THPS1 (no Manuals, Reverts, Wallplants, or mid-trick changing) and THPS2 (same but with Manuals enabled). I do believe it unfortunately disables some of the in-game achievements (although some of them are virtually impossible with these restrictions) though. But if you want, you can just boot up the game and go ham with all the stuff that has made THPS great over the years. The levels feel like their original counterparts - I admit I never played THPS1 so I can't speak for those, but the THPS2 levels feel exactly as they should and the objectives are 1:1 with the old games (which also means I 100% THPS2 in like 2 hours, lol). The Create-A-Skater feels... odd, like the faces on offer all look like some sort of weird androgenous, vaguely Asian person, I'm not in love with them but since you spend most of your time staring at your skater's back, it's not a huge deal. I like the idea of in-game purchases (with in-game currency, no MTX as far as I can tell) because it's a small, but effective incentive to complete the game's many challenges. That said, I feel like previous entries like THUG2 had a vastly superior CAS interface, but then again, this is a remaster of THPS1 and 2, not THUG, so I can't give them too much of a hard time. All in all, I'm glad this game is finally available on Steam, I'm glad it runs well and I'm glad the gameplay feels right, even though I have a feeling the most dedicated purist fans will probably find something to fault. To me, it's great and I will be enjoying every second of it!