PLAYSTATION GAME RECOMMENDATIONS |

The original PlayStation was my first console, and I've got a big soft spot for it. Here's a bunch of games for it I've tried out over the years, either ones I've known for a long time or ones I just found, all of which I think are worth sharing with you.

[#] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (Activision, 1999)

The one that landed the first 900.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is a fucking powerhouse. Everyone loves this game, and going back to the first game leaves no doubt as to why. You play a skater given two minutes to accomplish a set of tasks in a building or part of a city, stuff like scoring a certain amount of points, smashing scenery, or grabbing items or letters. Points are awarded for ridiculous flippy grabby grindy trick combos. Land the combo, get the points. Fall on your ass, you get nothing. It's dead simple.

You'll be taken from a dingy, leaky warehouse to schools, malls, dams, and top-secret government labs on your quest to skate everything. The flavor of the game is excellent, from the absurd trick names to the videos of each skater you unlock, and if Dead Kennedys, Primus, Suicidal Tendencies, and Unsane float your boat, great songs from each play during your runs. Some people defer to the Dreamcast version for its smoothness and draw distance, but the PS1 holds its own very nicely graphically.

Pro Skater can be a little wonky to return to after playing the later ones in the series. Combos and lines are less extravagant, spins feel stiffer, no manuals, no reverts, and it's harder to perform nollies or tell when you're skating switch. The core of the game was always here though, and that's what counts. The series would return to these locales several times in its run, which I think speaks to its icon status. Seriously, even my girlfriend loves these games.

Recommended for... skaters throwing it back super old school.

[#] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Activision, 2000)

Improved to near-perfection.

If the intro video, with its crazy rooftop jumps set to "Guerrilla Radio", didn't clue you in, you're not paying enough attention. The pinnacle of this series on PS1, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is that perfect sequel that keeps all the good stuff and polishes everything else to a sheen. This time around, the scores and the jumps get higher, and manuals (where you press up or down and then the opposite and try to balance) help you glue it together. It gets downright absurd at times--and I love it.

The first game suffered from some stiffness, and I wouldn't pick most of its levels as personal favorites, but 2 gets everything right. The levels are much more intricate, more fun to explore, and visually, I think they're more inviting. It's hard to forget the summer heat of Venice Beach, the creepy, seedy subways of New York, or the, er, Bullring (featuring a loop! Must be a Tony Hawk game). I even think the soundtrack is better--less ska and more Fu Manchu and Styles of Beyond, yes please.

There's tons to unlock in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, from cheats to secret characters to entirely new secret stages, and believe me, you'll wanna play to unlock them all. Add in a create-a-skater mode and a fucking park editor, and you simply will not get bored. You can play through ten times and find new things every time. You even have the ability to remap tricks and specials this time around! Sublime. Possibly the best game on the entire system.

Recommended for... uh, basically everybody?

[#] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (Activision, 2001)

An odd duck blend of new and old.

I was a little harsh on this port in my initial review. In the halcyon days of the PS2, because the PS1 was still quite a strong seller, companies would sometimes backport their new PS2 games to it, leading to strange little ports like this. Using the 2 engine with warped versions of the much more expansive 3 levels, it sounds pretty lame on paper, but y'know, I enjoyed the hell out of it. If you liked the other PS1 Pro Skater games, it's more of the same--but how can you go wrong with that?

While 3 on the PS2 was known for its breathing worlds that feature pedestrians, this version has zero pedestrians, making the levels feel like ghost towns--something Shaba Games clearly noticed, given the post-apocalyptic makeover they gave Los Angeles. Even still, the reworked levels definitely have a unique vibe, so it's still a pretty different experience. Reverts are included, though hilariously, the score goals from 2 haven't been increased at all, making them pretty trivial.

A lot has been recycled from 2, actually, like the park editor and create-a-skater options, though the game features all the skaters from the next-gen versions (plus some exclusive ones, like Wolverine) and retains their kickass soundtrack. This still isn't the ideal way to experience Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, but it's still a lot of fun, and even if it basically amounts to a 2 expansion pack, there's a lot worse you could be than that. You should play them both, really. Really!

Recommended for... Tony Hawk fans who just can't get enough.

[#] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (Activision, 2002)

A long-forgotten swan song to one of the PS1's greatest series.

Frankly, it's impressive this port even exists. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for the PS1 was a pretty simple level swap in the 2 engine, understandable, but the fourth entry brought the series open world, free roaming levels and goals given by pedestrians. How can the PS1 handle such a game? Surprisingly capably! Who would want to play such a port? Only me! But that's okay. This probably stretches the Apocalypse engine to its absolute limits in terms of technology and good taste, and you will get a workout from the increased difficulty playing it, but for the morbidly curious hardcore Tony Hawk fanatics, the dozens of us, it's a cool way to round out the series on PS1.

Each locale brings your skater a set of about thirty goals towards going pro (even though they're already pros, but stay with me here). A lot of the goals are your classic score goals. Sometimes, you gotta grab all the letters without breaking your combo (fuck those ones). Each stage now has its own competition goal. Remember Horse in the earlier games' multiplayer modes? Goal here too. All credit to Vicarious Visions, it's familiar without ever being transparently repetitive. This game does something really nice in sharing all goal progress and stat boosts across skaters--that's right, the days of doing the campaign fourteen times are done. Beat it once, do each pro's unique goal (2-3 per stage), and you've completed the game.

Alongside the timerless free roam between goals, THPS4 for PS1 includes all the spine transfers, hidden tricks, and grind extensions from the next-gen versions (skitching is obviously not included). I've heard people online complain about reverts into manuals not registering, but they not only felt the same as THPS3 on PS1, but I didn't have much issue with them. The only real trouble with this game is the sometimes sadistic difficulty, especially in the pro-specific goals. We're talking "wheelie down three ramps and around a corner and not bail" type stupidity. The market for this port is no doubt exceedingly small, but those in that group will find this a fun and fascinating final entry.

Recommended for... the hardest skaters (ew).

[#] Xevious 3D/G+ (Namco, 1997)

An arcade-to-PS1 conversion done right?

Xevious was a pioneering vertical scrolling shooter arcade game with several innovations--namely, multiple levels of targets to shoot, secrets, and a difficulty that adapts to how well you're doing. This disc is primarily a port of Xevious 3D/G, a 3D remake from when such things were fashionable, but as the name suggests, you also get ports of Xevious, Super Xevious, and Xevious Arrangement as extras. This disc is for the Xevious fanatic in your life (who doesn't know one?).

3D/G makes damn good use of the extra dimension, with crazy camera moves and huge end bosses. There's three upgradable weapons to choose from, a green laser and a red tendril cannon that locks onto enemies, but I still prefer the zapper you spawn with. It sounds short with only five levels, but they're ridiculously difficult, so I've yet to beat it. Nice bonus from Namco though: the ability to completely customize your control scheme, complete with a built-in rapid fire function!

As far as the other games go, they're all quality additions. Super Xevious rearranges the locations of the secret flags and citadels for folks who got bored of the original, and Xevious Arrangement is another remake of the game featuring weapon powerups. The menus are a bit funky (Circle is OK, like on the Japanese PS1), and you have to manually save your high scores, but this disc is a rooty-tooty point and shooty good time, and if you like arcade games, you should own it.

Recommended for... SHMUP fans of all stripes.

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