Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 launches today for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and Activision has released a flashy launch trailer to get you ready to lace up your Vans and attempt kick-flips in your driveway again.
The trailer intersperses shots of real-life skaters like Riley Hawk and Nyjah Huston with their in-game counterparts, and it showcases the game’s bright color scheme and somewhat supernatural effects.
That hip-hop you hear might seem at odds with the punk rock and ska soundtrack that usually accompanies the Tony Hawk series, though Activision says it lives up to the “franchise’s notoriously high standards.”
Of course, the full track list does include a few well-known punk acts, including Anti-Flag, Four Year Strong, and State Champs, but the lack of a good Less Than Jake anthem is certainly a bummer.
Thus far, review copies of the game have not been received by the press, and while the “full” file size for the game is 4.6 GB, the day-one patch clocks in at nearly double that. For a current-generation game, this is still an extremely small file size, but it doesn’t bode well for a game that underwent some pretty drastic changes just month before launch.
On Metacritic, the early user reviews are disheartening, at best. One user, who gave the game a 1/10, called the physics “terrible and inconsistent across the board,” and that its mechanics don’t resemble the original games “in the slightest.”
Other user reviews were more positive, noting that, despite some technical issues, it remains a solid throwback to the classic Tony Hawk games and gives fans exactly what they want. The game’s visual style, which goes for a cartoony aesthetic instead of the more realistic approach of past games, appears to be panned across the board, however.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 is out now on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions releasing this November.
