How the Manual Ruined Tony Hawks Pro Skater's Scoring System

[RaychelSnr]

If you've taken the newly released Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD online, you might be wondering how some people are posting scores in the millions while the majority of players are still struggling to reach six-digit figures.

The simple answer is the manual. Introduced in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, the manual allows skaters to continue their trick combo onto flat surfaces by simply popping wheelie after wheelie.

Read More - How the Manual Ruined Tony Hawks Pro Skater's Scoring System

[riichiieriich]

Tony Hawk is dead. Skate is better. The controls in Skate are so much more fluid than the button-tapping mess that is now Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

[shigogouhou]

The first video's following the exact same line with essentially the same tricks throughout (including at least two major air jumps that involved no tricks, presumably used just to line up that long run involving a backflip over the halfpipe into the long grind sequence.

It's not much more interesting than the bunny-hopping in video 2. More realistic, I guess, if getting huge air solely to brush harmlessly against a wall counts for realism.

[cosmonautDREW]

i wholeheartedly disagree. I like Skate for the very reason that it is close to skateboarding, i like Tony Hawk for the madness.

I loved THPS4, which had manuals, reverts, and spine transfers. The skill it took to do a 50 million point combo was astonishing and something to strive for in a creative fashion. It's very much the old school, "i'm gonna go to the arcade and set a record on this machine." Not a lot of games did that then when THPS4 was alive and kicking. Online, the community ended up doing 1 billion point combos from "whore lines" (lines that can be repeated by reverts, manuals and such)

I might have a bias because i was in the community of THPS4 online, but either way, i believe there is something truly lost on casual fans of THPS. It is a much deeper and manic game than people portray it to be.

Here's an example of a creative line from AndyTHPS (a player who ended up working for Neversoft because he was so damn good. He ended up doing level design for THPS series) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVy4dUA71eo

[cosmonautDREW]

i don't know how to make that clickable...sorry.

[BIGE888]

NO.....just.....NO.

[bigbob]

That second video was the biggest joke I've ever seen.

While I agree that the first video was just the same thing a couple of times in a row, at least it was more realistic.

[b2th3m1th]

they are both the same and repetitive they both dont take world class skill to do.

[Spaced Ace]

Both videos were lame... especially the second one. Pathetic. Repetitive nonsense. How about mixing it up?

[Hooe]

Re: How the Manual Ruined Tony Hawks Pro Skater's Scoring System

i wholeheartedly disagree. I like Skate for the very reason that it is close to skateboarding, i like Tony Hawk for the madness.

I loved THPS4, which had manuals, reverts, and spine transfers. The skill it took to do a 50 million point combo was astonishing and something to strive for in a creative fashion. It's very much the old school, "i'm gonna go to the arcade and set a record on this machine." Not a lot of games did that then when THPS4 was alive and kicking. Online, the community ended up doing 1 billion point combos from "whore lines" (lines that can be repeated by reverts, manuals and such)

I might have a bias because i was in the community of THPS4 online, but either way, i believe there is something truly lost on casual fans of THPS. It is a much deeper and manic game than people portray it to be.

Here's an example of a creative line from AndyTHPS (a player who ended up working for Neversoft because he was so damn good. He ended up doing level design for THPS series) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVy4dUA71eo

This sums up my opinion exactly.

True-to-life realism was never a goal of the Tony Hawk games. They were all about fun and score attack.

As to the video, no one I ever played Tony Hawk with played the game in that manner. Also, at-a-glance it appears that rail and manual balancing (notably after repeated tricks during long combos) are MUCH easier in next-gen THPS than in the original titles.

For the record, I don't own next-gen THPS and the last Tony Hawk game I played was Underground.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: How the Manual Ruined Tony Hawks Pro Skater's Scoring System

Completely disagree! THPS2 where they introduced the manual was my favorite Tony Hawk game by far. I spent hours at Venice Beach trying to rack up scores on the great lines to be found there. After that iteration it got really crazy, but it took some precision balance to get the big lines in 2.

Like CM Hooe, I do not own this iteration and do not plan to buy it. It simply doesn't appeal to me at this point. So, yeah, that video is pretty cheesy. But my nostalgia will not be discarded by saying the manual ruined THPS, dammit!

[YoungBuck3]

Re: How the Manual Ruined Tony Hawks Pro Skater's Scoring System

Yep I loved the introduction of manual's, reverts however I was not so fond of.

[Shinyhubcaps]

I like manuals and reverts. Manuals especially were a huge omission for the first game if it wanted to emulate actual skateboarding. The big flaw is the scoring system that counts manual + pop shoveit as x2, etc., allowing for that type of cheesing in the second video. What would be better is if you had to hold a grind or manual for 1 second for it to count as a multiplier. Reverts, then, should not affect the multiplier at all. I had some great games in Tony Hawk's Underground using the full bevy of tricks, and it looked like a creative line, and took immense skill (not to brag, haha).

In other words, cheesers gonna cheese.

[jyoung]

Re: How the Manual Ruined Tony Hawks Pro Skater's Scoring System

At-a-glance it appears that rail and manual balancing (notably after repeated tricks during long combos) are MUCH easier in next-gen THPS than in the original titles.

I noticed this, too, after recently going back and playing through the Dreamcast versions of THPS 1 and THPS 2. You cannot balance on rails or manuals for nearly as long in the original games. For some reason, the new developers made it a lot easier to hold your balance in THPS HD.

My friends and I mostly played THPS 2 with the "simulation physics" code on, and it made the game a lot more realistic and fun since most of us actually skateboarded in real life back then. The new THPS HD really could have benefited from including a "sim mode" code.

[VDusen04]

Re: How the Manual Ruined Tony Hawks Pro Skater's Scoring System

I agree the high scores are ridiculous, but I've grown used to that over the years with every single game I've ever played online. This is partly why I'm not a big online player. I like playing the games I own and feeling like I'm good at them. For instance, I felt particularly accomplished when I rang up 900,000 in Venice Beach. Only shortly thereafter, I discovered the online rankings and saw an endless stream of multiple millions. Many were likely not legit, but I bet many are.

I'll agree that eventually, Tony Hawk seemed to have just a little too many things going on in their games. I still played the newer ones anyway, but they didn't seem to have the lasting appeal of the first iterations. Sometimes simple is best. The riding behind cars, the shooting through cannons, the Jackass hijinks, it all definitely began to skew further and further away from skating itself as time went on. I think that's why I've been having such fun with Tony Hawk HD.