Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 Review

If the manual gave the series a grammar, the revert gave it punctuation you could ignore. Landing in a bowl and spinning out of the compression into a manual means vert and street stop being separate disciplines, and the combo counter simply never has to stop. Foundry, Canada and Airport are laid out by people who understood exactly what that unlocked, with pipes that feed rails that feed gaps in a circuit you can ride until your thumbs give out.

It was also the first console game with online play on PlayStation 2, which mattered more then than the feature list suggests. The trouble is that this is an iteration rather than a reinvention. The goal structure is still collect the letters, hit the high score, find the tape, and by the third game that list reads as a checklist rather than a design. Difficulty is front loaded oddly, with early parks tougher than the ones that follow. Mechanically it is the best the series ever played. Structurally it is standing on what came before.