THPS4 brought expected improvements to the series such better graphics and performance, more detailed environments, larger stages, etc. However, as other fans and reviewers have said, it felt like this was the start of the downfall of the series. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why, but that's just got this game felt.

Gameplay was updated to have crazier combos that simply felt like 'too much' while playing. Levels were bigger but their themes got wackier and overall design was simply not as good as previous games.

These are literally just 3D platformers disguised as a peak 00s sports game, and in that regard the most mechanically rich, complex and rewarding of any 3D platformer to grace the genre. I implore any bored 3D platformer fans to play the unconventional, especially these (3 or 4, or even THUG1/2)

Here's a mod that (mostly) fixes button prompts for the PC version, which is the version I'd recommend if you can tolerate the slightly awkward setup. If you want to play a physical copy/console version, Xbox version is best, and for overall convenience there's GameCube.

Tony Hawk was already riding high with the resounding success of the Pro Skater series and with the leap to newer consoles came the third one, easily one of the best entries in the series.

Naturally it's going to be quite hard to top a well-regarded sequel and while Pro Skater 4 does stumble in a few areas it manages to do some other things well - most notably with the biggest change in the series.

The previous three Pro Skaters had you trying to do as much tasks as possible within a time limit but in the fourth entry, that's ditched in favour of being able to go about the levels at your own pace and taking on missions from people hanging about progressively getting more difficult than before. It's definitely a welcome chance as previously it could be a little frustrating trying to reach that final goal only for the timer to reach zero and stop you dead in your tracks.

There's even more to do as well in the form of spine transfers which are a ton of fun to pull off and allows you to keep the combos going as well as skitching which lets you hold onto vehicles passing by.

Where the game falls down a little is in some of the levels and some of the goals. Pro Skater 4's levels aren't quite as good as 3's were.

There are still some great levels such as the iconic College level and even getting to visit London but the more lacklustre ones include the disappointing trip to the Zoo and the god bloody awful Ship Yard with it's terrible design and frustrating goals with ridiculously short time limits.

When Pro Skater 4 hits the mark it delivers but it just doesn't quite hit the same level of quality that the third Pro Skater did.

Good game, just not as good as Pro Skater 3.

THPS4 stopped me cold back in the day, and every time I've tried to revisit it since, I've never actually beaten it. I did this time, but I really had to force myself.

This game marks the first big shift in the series' structure - instead of the familiar two-minute runs where you try to check goals off a list, you're now cut loose in the (big) levels with no time limit and get your individual challenges from NPCs dotted around. At first, this is pretty neat - leisurely exploring levels at your own pace with no pressure is immediately rewarding. The problem is that it instantly and fatally robs any sense of competition or urgency from the gameplay, and gives a whole new, really alien vibe to the game.

The NPC quests are all over the place in length, quality, and challenge, with some being silly little larks that are beatable on your first try in mere seconds, and others being unreasonably difficult and forcing you to retry over and over and over for an hour while you try not to break your controller. Despite the openness, the structure feels inorganic, and in no time at all you just feel like you doing homework, skipping through the silly dialogue and skits and either quickly checking them off, or running into a nightmare one that is more or less busted. This is much worse in some levels that are so bafflingly designed and un-fun that the game essentially turns into a terrible open-world platformer for a while.

There is probably more content in this game than in all three previous entries put together, but none of it reaches anywhere near the heights of any of them, so it ends up feeling wayyyyy too long in comparison. For the first time since THPS1 the gameplay is pretty darn loosey-goosey, with way more jank than ever before, probably thanks to the workload of all the content eating up dev time. Trick lines and goal placement seems much less considered than before. The doofy humor from THPS3 has been ramped up again and it's still an acquired taste. Oh, and the soundtrack is now absolute garbage. AC/DC? You're really gonna subject me to that song every time I load the game?

This seems like a fair direction for the series to go - I mean how many games in a row can you do where it's just a series of timed levels - but the shaky-at-best implementation and the fact that the new laid-back approach essentially jettisons a huge part of the series' identity make me feel like it was kind of a mistake. Now that I've finally laid this to rest after twenty years, maybe it's time for me to play the fifth one and find out where the series goes from here.