Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 Warehouse demo takes me back to childhood

Hands-on with the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 Remaster Warehouse demo.

Desperate to get the taste of Skater XL out of my system, I was lucky enough to get to try a demo version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, the upcoming remaster of the first two games in the classic skateboarding franchise. Now, despite having a name long enough to put most JRPGs to shame, the game itself is exactly what I wanted.

This made me happy because, as I’ve talked about in the past, Tony Hawk has had some stinkers.

Is it the most accurate representation of skateboarding like some of the other skateboarding games try to be? No. And that’s why I loved what I got to play.

I never got into Sekiro because it required too much attention to detail and was just difficult. I don’t want to get good at it. I’m playing for an escape, not to put something else on my resume. But when Ghosts of Tsushima came out, I was all-in because it made me feel like a powerful samurai really early on.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is a lot like this. I don’t feel like I’m doing the tricks the way they’re supposed to be done and I’m totally okay with this. We also can’t throw fireballs but no one seems to complain when Ryu does it in Street Fighter.

The demo, which is available if you pre-order the game, gave me full access to the famous Warehouse stage. It was like a nostalgia trip.

I was stunned. It looked exactly as I remembered, even crashing through a gate unrealistically. Graphically, I was blown away. Tony Hawk actually looks like Tony Hawk. The warehouse looked like a real warehouse. There was graffiti on the surfaces and areas in need of maintenance. Even the pipes that I performed rail grinds on were rusty. It was the attention to detail where I could tell this game was built from the ground up.

The demo didn’t have a tutorial but instinct kicked in the moment I started playing. Despite not having played a Tony Hawk game in almost a decade, I immediately remembered how to do everything from manuals to transfers. It was like riding a bike, except it was a skateboard, except it was a virtual one… never mind.

Alongside the new makeover are fixes for a bunch of things. The controls are a lot better than I remember. You can also adjust a lot of things. If you want to just have fun with the game you can turn off the balance meters, giving you perfect rail grind and manual balance to pull off big trick chains more easily. It’s a lot more user friendly for casuals.

And the third thing they added was my favorite despite making no sense and being a bit jarring. It’s hard to tell in the screenshot below but it happened when I wiped out. Instead of my character going through some lengthy animation as they got back up and readied their board again, my character made a weird rewinding sound and his body glitched like Penelope in Wreck-It Ralph. Suddenly my character was standing upright.

It was weird but it allowed me to get right back in. It’s getting up after getting knocked down that was so efficient that somewhere Chumbawumba was proud. (Points and apologies for all who got that dad joke).

Not only were the controls smoothed out but my nostalgia trip continued with the soundtrack. When Goldfinger’s “Superman” came on, I was transported two decades back. I felt my old Airwalks on my feet. My hair felt three times longer. I was suddenly really mad at my parents and didn’t know why. I was transported back hard.

Unfortunately with the demo I only got to play the Warehouse stage and it was only in a timed mode so I didn’t get to experience a whole lot of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2. But what I did get to play filled me with an obscene amount of hope as it was all expertly done.

The physics are solid, the controls are a joy, and even the falling animation makes sense. If you do a trick where you are rotating and you land sideways facing down, you end up sliding on your knees. It was really impressive looking.

After playing this demo I absolutely can not wait for the full version of the game. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get in shape so I can start skanking again just in case this game brings ska back. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 releases on September 4 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.