When the first video we see of a game on launch day is a two minute montage of glitches captured within the first hour of gameplay, something’s not right.
Perhaps “somethings” is the better term to use there. The problems with the first new entry in the once-premiere skateboarding franchise in years began back in July, when the first gameplay trailer arrived to widespread ridicule — it did not look good.
And then everything went pretty quiet until yesterday, the day before release, when The Games Cabin reported that the pre-load for the game on PlayStation 4 was around four and a half gigabytes of data, but there was a day one patch that weighed in at more than seven gigs.
Purchasers of the disc version of the game have reported (via Twitter) that before the day one patch all they could do was use the park editor and play the tutorial, suggesting the patch was the majority of the game. That’s not good.
The most damning evidence of Tony Hawk 5’s problems came this morning from Eurogamer, which uploaded a wo minute video titled “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 Is A Glitchy Mess.”
There are several other glitch videos circulating, most taken from the PlayStation 4 version of the game.
Code for the Xbox One version hit my desk a little after noon Eastern today, and it’s never a good sign when the press gets the game after it’s already on sale. The entire install was 7.4 gigabytes — digital copies don’t need a patch.
It’s still not a pretty game. In character creation I waited some 10-15 seconds for characters’ clothing textures to pop into focus. During one of my online sessions the game lost the ability to activate the park challenges scattered across the level and I had to exit out and restart to get them working.
As far as the glitches Eurogamer noticed, I’ve played nearly two hours on the Xbox One and only had one tumble into the level geometry. I’ve had a few hilarious, gravity-defying bails, but they end in a flash and I respawn on the board. I’ve played through the game’s first campaign level and explored various user-created levels with little glitchiness.
Here’s five minutes of play, taken from my Xbox One copy.
As I said, not the prettiest game, and this opening level is a bit bland, but if you squint your eyes there’s the faint glimmer of the addictive fun that made the original games in the series so popular years ago.
But it definitely needs work, especially the PlayStation 4 version. Or the series just needs to be canned. If Robomodo, the makers of Ride, Shred and Pro Skater HD is the best studio Activision is willing to assign to such an iconic name it’s time for Tony Hawk to ride out the end of his 13 year contract and skate on to greener pastures.
Tony Hawk’s Skate 4, anyone?
Comments
40 responses to “Behold, The Terrible Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5”
Sounds like they cheaped out on dev and rushed it out the door….. what a sad state to the already declining/decimated TH series.
Can’t wait for Skate 4.
When you read that their contract was finishing this year you realise this whole game was a cynical move by Activision to a) Rush a quick product out the door, b) kill off the whole Tony Hawk brand to stifle future competitors
I think this will actually hurt the potential of there being a Skate 4, which makes me very sad.
Nah, I grew up with Tony Hawk in highschool and am a HUGE fun but….. by the time Skate 2 rolled around the TH series was pretty irrelevant. Shouldn’t have any bearing on what EA is doing.
What I meant was that EA canned Skate after #3 and disbanded the studio altogether, probably citing that skateboarding games aren’t that popular anymore, particularly after the demise of TH. There have been a lot of people gunning for a return to Skate, and I’d imagine if this iteration of TH did well EA would hopefully use that a reason to get in on the money and make another Skate.
But considering that this looks like a pile of poo, EA will most likely use that as an excuse to say “see? skateboarding games don’t sell” and not make another Skate game. Which supremely sucks.
I respectfully disagree. I believe that the supposed decline in popularity is simply a lack of quality options. We shouldn’t look at the sales figures of a clearly rushed cash grab and use that to judge the popularity of a specific genre.
Given how much of EA’s out put is made up of clearly rushed cash grabs, I reckon that’s exactly what they’ll be looking at when judging the potential for Skate 4 😛
Good point. I guess I’m just hoping Skate doesn’t follow the same downward spiral as THPS.
This looked like shit from the moment the first trailer went online.
Not just in terms of the visuals, either – something about it just seemed cheap, forced, and boring. The fact that early impressions are ones of derision does not surprise me in the least.
Let it go, Activision. No one cares any more.
The lack of any most or promotion of this hands leading up to ( and after) is release was enough for me to avoid it. It seems they’ve had no faith in it throughout development. I predict this will sell a few copies based on the name, but consumers won’t be tricked again.
Honestly looks like an iOS game lol.
Please tell me the price is $4.99.
this is a full retail release… lower than usual RRP though as EB is listing for $69.95… I believe Target is selling for $57… both prices are waaaay too high though
I dunno, I think I’ve seen better looking iOS games.
Sigh* not only does the game look like shit… but that soundtrack…. da fuq???
I don’t understand how you could stand more 5 minutes with this game. Looks utterly terrible.
This makes a mockery of the entire platform holder certification process that all console games have to go through. What is the point of making games go through the process if they can actually pass it in this state?
I guess they have changed their definition of “certified” to the day 1 patch, over the disc release. Seems like they see the disc release as just a data transfer and a license check these days, because the games don’t run off the disc.
Not saying I support it…
Perhaps, although by the sound of things, it’s not too flash even with the patch.
Does make you wonder what kind of an absolute abomination a publisher would have to serve up to fail certification, though.
I’ve been playing THPS2 with the PCSX-R emulator for a couple of months now, and with the modern graphical features the emulator adds [HD resolution, upscaled textures [many PSX textures are vector images!], AA etc….] it actually looks and plays extremely well.
Would recommend using an emulated PSX copy of Tony Hawk over this new game any day.
this makes me want to see if any further tinkering was done with the PC version – even back in the day there were config file tweaks to push back the draw distance fog and scale things up a bit… though ultimately I’m just wishing the skateboard genre would get a good Kickstarter like some of the racing and flying games.
This is obviously just a re-skinned Goat Simulator.
I knew I recognised all that wonk!
Can’t we all just agree that anything that occurs on “Day One” of a release is in no way a patch. Also, I JUST got ‘Jerry Was a Racecar Driver’ out of my head…. after all this time….. I can’t handle another Turny Hawkes soundtrack….
Beyond the obvious issues with this game, including the soundtrack – I think that the style of game has come and gone. I can’t fathom how many days of my life I’ve spent playing THPS1-3 throughout my life and I recently revisited the HD remakes.
I was so fired up and excited but within five or ten minutes of play, I was bored out of my mind.
I don’t know if it’s just me, or if the gameplay is just incredibly dated but sadly, it seems over in my eyes.
Yeah dude, exact same crud we’ve seen a million times.
I’ve owned pretty much every single TH game and it’s stale as all hell now.
I used to skate pretty seriously back in the day. This game doesn’t look too bad to me, I have plenty of stories about stacking so hard that half my body got embedded in the pavement.
I used to play 720 on the C64 pretty seriously back in the day and this game looks shit.
No, it’s most definitely a patch. If it’s not on the disc which gets certified before release then it is a patch.
Dammit, I really want to get it, but I think the most i’d pay for something like this is $20. So going to be waiting for the sale I think
If anyone is really desperate for it, target ebay has it for $58 then enter code “CLICK15” for an extra %15 off
Wait a week, it will be a lot cheaper then $20 by the looks of things.
Thats what I’m hoping 🙂 Still looks like fun… just not full price fun lol
How could they mess this up? There is a built in audience craving a fresh take on the original TH formula. No need to have expansive THUG style levels, no need to get off your board *sigh*. Just a few small parks with bowls, pipes and rails. Get the gameplay right and then bombard us with DLC levels for the next 5 years! Job Done!
I thought this is how all skate games go:
This makes me miss skating.
Lol, for all the times youve gotten a body part stuck in the ground? xD
I remember the days of American Wasteland, that game was bonkers, but one of my most favorite games of all time. I remember my brother got a gameshark thing or whatever they are called and made me a custom character that had a hoverboard and a mohawk that clipped through the hoody and the skateboards graphic was glitched out so it was 2 on top of each other. Those were the days.
I guess they didn’t realise what people meant when they said it should be more like Skate.
This is such a confused review. First you say its terrible, glitchy mess and then you try to defend it. What are you on about?
Didn’t expect any less, from the get-go I knew it was a pathetic cash grab.
Damn. I was pretty excited about this tbh was hoping they could revive the series… obviously not.
Started going downhill with #3. They dug up a dead horse just to flog it some more.
Even the good game Sonic 06 is better, and sonic 06 is a good game, despite the glitches and the villainous silver, taunting you constantly with ‘its no use’ but, at least I was in it, and i got to kill sonic!