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"Skateboarding is a beautiful thing!"

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 20
Date: November 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Not only is that quote by Selema Masekela true of the sport, it is also true of this game. The graphics are very detailed and jaw-dropping at points. Wait till you see the airport level...wow!

I just got through playing the game for several hours and am thoroughly impressed! Adding to the level of detail and realism are new animations, including some wicked looking falls, which can make you wince and even laugh. There is also a big increase in interaction with the more background elements. Certain levels' goals call for the player to directly get involved with people who are standing around watching you. When you get to the point where you have to free Chuck from his painful predicament, you'll laugh out loud. Then, when you meet up with him later, you'll laugh even harder. There is also quite a bit of talking by the background characters, both to themselves and directly to the player. Even some of the messages upon bailing are funny!

As far as the skaters themselves, everyone from Pro Skater 2 is present, with the exception of Bob Burnquist, who has been replaced with Bam Margera. Every character has tons of tricks, which can be hand-picked by the player if he/she so desires. Another thing that will help players is the ability to increase or decrease certain stats at will. This can be very helpful if certain objectives require a higher level of a certain skill.

Gigantic combos, bigger than ever before, are now possible. The addition of the revert can allow a player to continue a string of tricks once they've landed after going up a ramp. The revert can then be turned into a manual, which can be used to reach a rail, gap, etc...thus creating very long strings of tricks. Those who are fleet of thumb will be impressed at the scores they can rack up in a very short amount of time.

With the ease of combining tricks, you can even take a guy like Rodney Mullen, who combines old-school freestyle with new school street skating, and semi-successfully re-create some of the runs you see him do in such videos as Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song, Parts I & II. I was quickly doing truckstands to caspers/anti-caspers to rail flips, etc...with my eyes bugging out of my head all the while. It looks so real!

Basically, this is a perfect game. The best skateboarding game ever created. Even if you can't stand the sport of skateboarding itself, I can't see how any video game player would not have fun with this game, especially since it is so easy to get into, with excellent controls and even a tutorial, with voiceovers by tony himself. Even though this game will be released on other systems, they would have to do something incredibly drastic to improve on this version. It is an absolute masterpiece. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION POSSIBLE!

A MUST BUY!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 22
Date: September 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

THPS1, and THPS2 were huge hits. But now there is THPS3, which will be excellent. I saw it at the annual Playstation Convention, in my opinion best game there (although it is my favorite series, so why wouldn't it be). The old ones were out on PS1, but now there's the power of the PS2 put into play. The game has great smooth graghics, with an excellent frame rate!

Also PS2 has online multiplayer options. This will be one of the playables online. You can play with several friends, one way is you can all play in the same arena and see who is the best. The other way that I know of is a game where two people crash into each other and you see you withstands the crash. There are more multiplayer options I just forgot them all.

Like always, chose your skater go through new levels. I saw a video at the convention where he was controling the skater on a roof, and the skater hit a car. The car fell to the streets and landed back wards, hit another car, then the police came! Things like this are all through out the game unlike THPS1 and 2. Everyone should give this a chance.

Simply...amazing!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: November 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is simply the best game out on the PS2! The gameplay is similair to THPS and THPS2, but you won't get tired of it. The graphics are amazing, and the levels are huge. Here is a quick run through of the levels:

1st level: Foundry - A nice level! Plenty of rails to grind on. Actually, probably one of the best levels to grind. Some of the level goals(besides getting SKATE and high or pro scores, which are in all the levels), include sinking one of the workers in a giant pool, and grinding on a molten lava bucket.

2nd level: Canada - A nice, wide open level. You start off in the parking lot, with some nice rails to grind and speed bumps to hop. Next to that is the skatepark, where one of the goals is to impress 5 of the Canadian skaters. If you don't, they say "Show me somathin, eh?" Its pretty funny. If you go beyond the skatepark you will find yourself in the woods, where you must bury a bully by jumping in the tree above him to knock all the snow down pn top of him. There are also TONS of pipes to bust out tricks and logs to grind.

3rd Level: Rio - The 1st competition level. Again, wide open, but not a level that is unique to the game such as Tokyo, LA, and Canada.

4th level: Suburbia - My favorite! Your in a neighborhood. Actually, your at the dead end of a neighborhood. There are trailers with some cruddy looking ramps around them, but you can get soem nice air on them. Next to the trailers are more nicer houses, where you can let it rip in some guys empty swimming pool. Then the house next door to that has a mini skatepark in back of it. Some of the goals here can be tricky, such as restoring the satellite dish to one of the houses and getting the secret tape, which you have to go through the haunted house on the hill to get! This level is much bigger than what I have made it sound like(ex: you can go in houses, through garages, etc.)

5th level: Airport - Graphically the 2nd most impressive! (number one being tokyo). There is the most grinding here, ex: escalarors, etc. Some of the goals include getting tickets to yuor skater buddy, and stopping 5 pickpockets.

6th level: Skater Island - Not unique to the game. Although it has nice ramps and huge pipes. Its mainly a massive indoor skatepark.

7th level : LA - Boo Ya! This level is huge! Plenty of curbs, wires, etc to grind on. There is a park in the middle where there are some half pipes, etc. Cars stop for you on the road. Some of the goals include triggering an earthquake by grinding on 4 specific rails. After this, the bridge partly collapses. Find your way onto the bridge and grind on a car to knock it over the edge, which will block the police chase. Its Maddness!

8th level: Tokyo - Graphically the most impressive level. Not as big as I thought it would be, but the park layout makes up for it. This is the 3rd competition level. Grind on neon bars or soar off a glowing ramp into the midnight sky. Chances are you'll land a some multi colored bright bar. There are huge(and I mean huge) quarter pipes, etc. You'll find everything you want in this level. Get 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place and unlock the hidden level.

HIDDEN LEVEL: Crusie ship - One of the biggest levels. Grind on rails, side of pools, etc. There is a graden on the ship where you can tear it up, a museum which you can destroy, and a slide for the pool which is fun to grind down. There are girls all over the place. Some of the goals are to impress them. Another one is in the museum on the ship,where you have to grind a picture which will fall of the wall and break the lock an a giant cannon ball, which rolls halfway through the ship teraing up everything, which makes for excellent grinding combos!

I hope this review was helpful to you. This game is also very smooth, except fot MINOR choppiness in the LA level, which is the only lag I ever felt. Other than that, create a park and skater are better than ever before, and ONLINE PLAY is coming soon too. This game aslo includes a demo of Shaun Palmers Pro Snowboarder.

Online play makes or breaks this as a sequel

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 16
Date: November 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The most recent addition to the Tony Hawk series adds a fair number of changes, the most visible being the addition of the revert and the ability to play online.

There's not much to say about the revert that hasn't already been said. It's cool, and does make your combos that much more absurd. From an aesthetic standpoint, its addition is nice because lip tricks are a lot more feasible for inclusion into combos.

The online play seems to make of break this game for many reviewers. I've seen very few negative reviews which really address the online play, so take that for what you will. It's dirt simple to set up; the Linksys adapter works like a charm and the network settings configuration is both easy and surprisingly powerful. The actual gameplay is impressive, as it's very playable over a 56k modem. There are a few minor problems that make you wish for software updates, though. The limit of 4 players is slightly annoying, though more would only make sense on the large levels. More irritating is the fact that the person running the server has to manually start each game, making dedicated game servers unfeasible. Other problems come up, such as the fact that you can't use created parks online, you can't turn off dumping upon collision with other players, and stock levels that were poorly designed for multiplayer. However, all of that is outweighed by the fact that it's just a lot of fun to play online.

Now that the two biggies are out of the way, there's still a lot of minor tweaks to the gameplay. The first thing most people will notice is that the balance system is a bit more difficult. It takes some getting used to, but skilled players will have no trouble with it after an hour or two. Flatland tricks are a cool addition, though they get awfully annoying online. ollie-less transitions between tricks for grinding and lip tricks are a nice touch, allowing for some cool sequences, going from 50-50 grind, to nose grind, to nosebluntslide to noseslide to crooked grind, and so on.

The levels are actually generally better than those from THPS2. None of the levels are as bad as the School II or New York from THPS2 (which, while fun, had very little flow), and the Skater Island and Cruise Ship levels are really great. The Airport is a complete throwback to the Mall in THPS1, which inspired much nostalgia (plus, Airport is a better level). Foundry is a fairly good first level, though I prefer the simplicity of the Hangar from 2. From THPS1, Warehouse, Roswell, and Burnside are all unlockable in THPS3. I never particularly liked Burnside (in fact, I really disliked it), and I don't understand why they didn't add the first School or San Francisco, but Warehouse and Roswell are welcome additions. With so much space available on the disc, I really wish they would just release a game with all of the levels on it (I don't count THPS 2x for Xbox). I'd love to play Minneapolis or Chicago from THPS1 or Venice Beach from THPS2 with this engine.

In short, while there's a lot of good things about THPS3, it's clear they don't have all the kinks worked out. If you don't mind shelling out an extra 40$ for a USB Ethernet adapter (and plan on another 20$ for a USB keyboard), you really should check out the online play, because it's a lot of fun. If you're a fan of the series, you might appreciate the engine tweaks, but they're really not that huge.

Tony Hawks pro Skater 3

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: November 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

GAMEPLAY-As good as ever with satisfying tweeks-10/10
GRAPHICS-Only beaten by Gran Turismo 3 and MGS2-9/10
SOUND-It sounds like real life. Thud when you crash!-9/10
MUSIC-Motorhead, Red Hot Chili Pepers and Alien Ant Farm-10/10
LIFESPAN-Tons to see and do. And a lot to unlock-10/10
REVERT-This just makes the scoring capabilities better-9/10
SPECIAL-MOVES-Crazy, funny and downright fabulous-10/10
CREATE-SKATER-Now so deep you can't see the bottom-10/10
PARK-EDITOR-More space means better parks and more too-10/10
DETAIL-Almost too much detail and the depth is incredible-10/10
VIDEOs-DVD makes it amazing. Rodney Mullen rocks-10/10
FREESTYLE-These are so flashy and good to watch-10/10
TRICKS-Twice as many as in THPS2-10/10
LEVELS-All are situated to increse combo potential-9/10
CHEATS-They return with some hilarious new ones-9/10
OVERALL-THIS GAME ROCKS LIKE NOTHING ELSE!!!! !>10/10

one of the best PS2 games to date

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: November 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User

hey this is probably the best game for any system. i got this game today and it rules. It has the best graphics, eveyrthing is so smooth in this game, there are no pop-ups and polygonal problems like in the 1st 2 games. This game features 8 huge levels, i mean HUGE. these stages are really big and detailed. If you thought the stages in THPS2 rocked, you are gonna be blown away by these stages. Did I mention the create-a-park mode, because it;s back. They have many outfits for all the skaters now, like you can even put on little details like do-rags and kinds of socks, so thats a nice addition. You only get Bam Margera as a new skater but you lose Bob Burnquist. This game is far superior to Bob's PS2 game. You also get new tricks, like the revert move and new flatland tricks. The sound track is excellent, features a mix of punk, hip-hop, and rock. there are now 9 goals per stage so you are gonna play this for a while. new additions include interactive people on the stages, you can run into them and stuff but still its a nice feature to have. the 2-player mode has 2 new games so you go call your friends to come over to play this baby. But the bad things? yup there is only one complaint I have: WE HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL 2002 TO PLAY ONLINE, yup but still at this rate by 2002 you still wont be done with this game,why dont you stop reading this, and GO BUY THIS GAME!!!!!! YOU WONT REGRET IT, ITS WORTH EVERY PENNY YOU SPENT ON IT!!!

Greatest game, but no AOL!?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: November 07, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is undoubtedly the greatest skateboarding game EVER! The realistic graphics and stylish gameplay make this a must own. With 8 levels (9 if you beat all 3 competitions), the new revert move (now you can link together vert moves by quickly tapping L2 or R2 and converting into a manual for crazy trick combos), and great new options like up to 10 special trick slots and slightly different goals between characters, it is great. I have beaten it with Bam Margera (a great new character from MTV's Jackass) and earned Darth Maul from Star Wars and am currently working with Tony Hawk. The only problem with this game is with its current lack of America Online support. When the new internet adapter hits stores, it will not work with AOL as of now. Perhaps changes may occur, but don't let on-line multiplayer lackage drive you away from this game. Just go pick up a couple of friends and play till your thumbs hurt. Besides, how many games actually will be supported at all? Some already released great titles will go internet-less forever. So as soon as you finish reading this, GO OUT AND BUY TONY HAWK'S PRO SKATER 3!!!

Addictive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 18, 2001
Author: Amazon User

With other reviewers saying that the game is overrated, they are completely wrong. And this game has a major feature that these reviewers seemed to have overlooked. THERE IS ONLINE MULTIPLAYER! It adds so much. You can play against anybody in 4 or 5 different modes.

The graphics are great. The animations between tricks look a lot smoother than in the past two games.

Another change in the game is the linking of tricks without use of an ollie. if you do a 50-50 grind you can then link it to a nosegrind or a tailgrind, then to a nose or tail bluntslide, crooked grind, or tailslide...all without doing an ollie. That adds a lot of realism to the games physics. Though the rest of the physics are quite unrealistic, it makes for a fun game.

There is a lot of incentive to beat the game, unlike in the first two installments. I have beaten it 12 times so far with all goals and gold medals. Every time you do that, you get a video (created skaters and secret skaters open up videos of the Neversoft guys skating which are hilarious) and either a secret character, a level from THPS1, or a cheat mode (such as special meter always full)

the secret characters are as follows: Darth Maul, Wolverine, Officer Dick, Private Carrera, Ollie the Bum, Kelly Slater(the surfer), and the Demoness.

Overall, this game rocks. If it didn't, do you really think id waste my time typing this?

Tony Hawk is Back, Old School

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

From the very beginning of its incarnation, the Tony Hawk Pro Skater (THPS) series has been excellent. From the very first one, I remember having to learn everything without any help from my more experienced friends, and eventually turning things around and stomping them. THPS 1 was very basic, involving only grinds and vert tricks. I remember the insane-point tricks were rare

Then THPS 2 arrived. It was excellent in all regards: more detailed levels, the ability to change tricks, and the addition of manuals. Manuals made it possible to do insane-point tricks all the time. How insane? On some days, I average 500,000 points a trick, without any cheats. Also, from THPS 1, the gameplay seemed a little slower, almost like the developers were giving you more time to pull off all those killer tricks. It was still a good game, but points were way too easy to get.

Now THPS 3 is here, and I am stunned: the graphics are great, the levels are great (except for Suburbia..that one needs help,) and they included one of my favorite skaters, Bam Margera from the show Jackass. When I first started playing, I fell over constantly. I found out that THPS 3 ran "faster" than number 2. Every move has to be more precise than part 2. And it no longer feels like you're hanging in the air for infinite periods of time. Finally, the challenge was back again. This doesn't mean insane-tricks aren't possible; actually, with the addition of reverts, the tricks can get even more crazy. But the challenge of the quicker pace balances that ability quickly.

For anyone who fell in love with THPS 1 and thought THPS 2 was a little too forgiving, THPS 3 will make your dreams come true. For anyone who fell in love with THPS 2, sit down with THPS 3 for an hour and you'll fall in love with it as well.
(...)

THPS 3 takes an already superb franchise and makes it even better. Kudos to the guys at Neversoft for making this a must buy for any dedicated gamer.

Good, but not Great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 14
Date: November 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I am pretty dissapointed with this game. The levels seem so small and most of them suck. If you don't skate, it might not bother you, but the thing that made number 2 so good, for me anyway, was all the real skate spots. In TH3, it looks more like a little kids video game with neon lights and some really lame themes (skating trees in canada....who cares!!!!!!!!)

The animation is great. The tricks are a lot better. Control, overall is perfect. It's just the levels that are bugging me.

Neversoft should have continued incorporating real skate spots into the game....why not Boston, Atlanta, Tampa, Chicago, Phoenix, DC, Pittsburgh, Cleveland? All those cities have great spots. They did a good job with the second skatepark (i think it's in RI) and the LA level is pretty good (minus the idiots saying "hey bust a trick" every 5 minutes.) Spare me the unecessary background clutter and build a better overall game. Who really cares if there are people walking around and cars driving by.

I almost want to give it 3 stars, but I can't. Hopefully the levels will grow on me. We'll see.

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