I complain about it sometimes, but I don’t hate my job. It’s not very challenging, and it’s often quite boring, but I get by. Lately, it seems that getting by involves reading a lot of random Wikipedia articles. Like on Thursday when I read that last year somebody thought it would be a good idea to port Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 to iOS. And I think it would be a good idea to give this person a nice, long handy jay.
Needless to say, I downloaded it right away. I may not have ever mentioned this before, but like many, I was pretty obsessed with the THPS series in its formative years. These days it’s crap, but THPS2 is the cream of the crop. It was the perfect sequel for a fledgling series; basically the same game as the first but with a few gameplay improvements and loaded down with more content. By the time THPS3 rolled around it was beginning to get excessive, and I just didn’t feel 4 at all.
I lost interest by the time Tony Hawk’s Underground hit the scene, and though I think Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland is an all-around stellar game, it still doesn’t compete with my undying love for the second entry in the series. Which I am now playing on my phone.
Normally, I wouldn’t bother getting the THPS2 app, but it was two dollars and somebody lost my PSX version disc years ago, so really I had no choice in the matter. After all, this is one of the two games (with Megaman Legends) that forced me to break down and get a Playstation all those years ago. I’ve spent about two hours with the game over the course of today, and I have both good and bad news.
Firstly, the bad news. And it’s really bad. I am very upset to report that Activision replaced the entire soundtrack for the iOS port. This is a terrible thing, because the original THPS2 soundtrack was awesome. I wish I could make that awesome more bold, because I mean it more than anything ever before. The THPS2 soundtrack was such an epic thing for me that I feel it necessary to pour some beer on the curb for my lost friend. This was the time after Napster, and I was still only starting to learn about music beyond the radio’s limited and stagnant output. The 15 songs included on the THPS2 disc led me into new and exciting genres, like punk, good hip-hop, and Rage Against the Machine. The iOS port has a bunch of soulless, generic garbage by bands/rappers that I could not identify. In fact, if I hadn’t just watched the in-game music credits, I would have hypothesized that Activision just went to the closest record label and asked for their 10 (9? I forgot to count) cheapest songs. But it gets better! There is apparently a workaround that installs the original music! I haven’t tried it yet, but the fact that it claims that it can be done without jailbreaking my iPhone fills me with delicious hope. (EDIT: It works!)
The other downer is, as with many of the apps I’ve downloaded, the touch controls. You’d think I would have learned after Secret of Mana that they just don’t work well for action games. And SoM is a fairly slow action RPG. THPS2 requires much more complicated and precise inputs. The touch interface is unreliable and inaccurate, making this game in particular very difficult. With a wonderfully tactile controller and buttons, I could have achieved the SICK score in the first stage after maybe one or two warm-up runs. It took me almost all day to get it with the sloppy touch screen controls. There is an accelerometer option, but I think that would end up even worse, seeing as it doesn’t even work great with I Love Katamari, which doesn’t need button presses in addition to tilts.
The good news is that other than the inferior soundtrack, the game is represented in its entirety. Or at least as much as I can remember. It lacks create-a-skater and park editor modes, but I find those superfluous anyway. All the skaters, venues, tricks, and gaps are accounted for, though I can’t speak for any unlockable stuff. Not that far yet. Also, once you get used to the controls being more than a little wonky, the game is still awesome fun. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s the best Tony Hawk game, and now it’s portable. And it’s two dollars. Did I mention that it’s only two dollars?