thank god they're changing tony hawk 4's career mode
so recently it was announced that the upcoming tony hawk's pro skater 3+4 game was going to make some big changes to 4 specifically. in a break from how that game was originally laid out, the career mode in the 4 side of 3+4 will follow the traditional 2 minute timer format that the first 3 games utilized. when this news came out, there was a very loud backlash to this, saying that the project is dead on arrival and might as well be sent directly to the trash. this was very odd to me, as i think it's the #1 thing i would change about the original game.
i don't know if this is a controversial take, but i think tony hawk 4 was a turning point for the series, and not a good one, either. while i am in fact quite fond of thug and thug 2, i have increasingly found it's style of career mode to be just not what i want from a tony hawk game. the open level mission based formula that those games used fits in a lot better with a game like skate. at least with the thug games and beyond, there was story, such as it was, to string it along.
4 doesn't have that, however. you are in san francisco because that is the next level. there's no narrative justification for you doing anything. this isn't inherently a problem, but it makes the whole experience feel artificial. there's not much to tie you to a location. this would be fine if the goals themselves were good, but they're kinda not? they don't last long enough to really feel like they require much of you.
adding back in the time component gives that grounding back. one of the things that you start to notice as you play is that the traditional tony hawk goals just don't work with these levels. probably the most iconic tony hawk goal is spelling s-k-a-t-e. while these don't require you to complete it in one combo, it was always a fun thing to try and do. here? it just isn't worth your time. they've spread all the letters all over the level. why do this? so that you actually need to spend the full 2 minutes hunting them down. and only that. no trying to hit a big high score as you do it, no hunting the secret tape on a quick detour. just spell s-k-a-t-e. it sucks.
what bringing the 2 minute timer for 4 tells me is that the team at iron galaxy is willing to make changes that suit to project. it would feel weird for both halves of the game to be so different from each other. this makes it a more unified experience. they've also committed to making new levels as well. to me, i don't really see the point of making 3+4 completely true to the original experience, and you wanna know why? 1+2 wasn't either! they made the deliberate choice to include additions to the trick system that were not present in either original release. it made the game a better product as a result, and i think that will be the case here as well.
if that disappoints you, i understand. however, there is a really cool and easy solution to that problem: you can just play the original release. it's still there! download an .iso of 4 and pcsx2 and have a gay old time. it will always be there.