Having a PS2 setup that I actually enjoy using is a pathway to fulfilling a million stupid wee urges. Bam Margera's likeness looks scary convincing with a good CRT and RGB SCART.
THPS3 marks a shift for the series. The point of near-vertical decline. The series had got too big and too broad. People weren't buying these as skateboarding games now. They were just daft score attack games where mad things happened. Ollie the Magic Bum has a lot to answer for.
Goals in the first two games generally involved getting a big score, landing specific gaps, or picking up a series of collectables within the time limit. Now, it's all "knock over the dickhead", "divert the car into the trash compactor", "pour the bucket of water on the racial stereotype". I didn't appreciate it when I was 14. I certainly didn't like it in my 20s. In my 30s, I'm pretty much past caring, though I can't say I'm a fan of that stuff either.
The level design seems more intrinsically linked to the goals, too. Rails divert you onto perilous paths that only exist to shoot you towards a Hidden Tape. The level list is split pretty evenly between tiny skateparks and sprawling Looney Tunes bullshit. There's relatively little room for creativity in your lines, and that really hurts the game's replay appeal.
It is, however, quite a fun hour-long campaign to run through, once a decade. Reverts are a really welcome addition to your moveset, allowing you to keep a combo going for far longer, and quarterpipes no longer necessarily serve as the place to finish a long chain of tricks. I'll never praise Neversoft enough for their ambition with these games, either. Not only have THPS2's level editor and create-a-skater made it over to the notoriously impenetrable Emotion Engine within 3's year-long development, they implemented full online support before Sony had even made serious moves to support network play.
I think THPS3 is the earliest PS2 game I still own my original copy of, and it's easy to see why I never traded it in. It really was a blessing between the single-player TimeSplitters 1 sessions and Project Eden. I wish I argued a little harder to convince my brother that we should have got SSX, but the pain of the 2001 release schedule would soon be over.
THPS3 marks a shift for the series. The point of near-vertical decline. The series had got too big and too broad. People weren't buying these as skateboarding games now. They were just daft score attack games where mad things happened. Ollie the Magic Bum has a lot to answer for.
Goals in the first two games generally involved getting a big score, landing specific gaps, or picking up a series of collectables within the time limit. Now, it's all "knock over the dickhead", "divert the car into the trash compactor", "pour the bucket of water on the racial stereotype". I didn't appreciate it when I was 14. I certainly didn't like it in my 20s. In my 30s, I'm pretty much past caring, though I can't say I'm a fan of that stuff either.
The level design seems more intrinsically linked to the goals, too. Rails divert you onto perilous paths that only exist to shoot you towards a Hidden Tape. The level list is split pretty evenly between tiny skateparks and sprawling Looney Tunes bullshit. There's relatively little room for creativity in your lines, and that really hurts the game's replay appeal.
It is, however, quite a fun hour-long campaign to run through, once a decade. Reverts are a really welcome addition to your moveset, allowing you to keep a combo going for far longer, and quarterpipes no longer necessarily serve as the place to finish a long chain of tricks. I'll never praise Neversoft enough for their ambition with these games, either. Not only have THPS2's level editor and create-a-skater made it over to the notoriously impenetrable Emotion Engine within 3's year-long development, they implemented full online support before Sony had even made serious moves to support network play.
I think THPS3 is the earliest PS2 game I still own my original copy of, and it's easy to see why I never traded it in. It really was a blessing between the single-player TimeSplitters 1 sessions and Project Eden. I wish I argued a little harder to convince my brother that we should have got SSX, but the pain of the 2001 release schedule would soon be over.
3 Comments
I got the PS1 version of this Jan 2002. Was a revelation when I finally tried it on PS2.
Of those, we had GTA3 roughly around its launch. It's one that mainly spread through word of mouth. I remember the UK magazines being kind of lukewarm on it. Might have even been 2002 before we actually got a copy. ZOE and the MGS2 demo were doing a lot of heavy lifting back then.
Yuggy
1 year ago