Pretty obviously an attempt by Activision to cash-in on the success of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, but Neversoft do the most they can with the concept. I quite enjoy the reverential tone of the FMV that accompanies each different level, and it's clear that the developers have tried to imbue the game with a deep appreciation and respect for surf culture.
The actual gameplay is a solid riff on the THPS formula - you're landing tricks and building longer combos with bigger point multipliers to earn higher scores within a time limit. Landing tricks fills up your special meter, which allows you to attempt more complex tricks with bigger scores attached. Each level has specific objectives to complete, such as requiring you to land specific tricks in sequence, reach a high score, or hit different objects in the level.
The game controls much the same too - launching airs, grabs, and spins off the top of a wave is achieved the same way as launching off a quarter pipe in THPS, so any muscle memory of playing those games should help here.
Neversoft have obviously had to make some tweaks to the gameplay to better fit what surfing is like in real life, and they work quite well. Carving along the face of the wave (called 'face' tricks) is essentially your way of performing a revert/manual trick to extend your combos, riding inside the tube of a wave takes the place of grinds/lip tricks (balance meter and all), and there's a much greater emphasis placed on landing 'perfect' rotations for your airs. It's a little forced, but for the most part it works, and I actually really enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay.
However, the THPS games are so good (in my opinion) because the levels are designed to include a variety of obstacles laid out in a way that allows players to chain combos together in creative and interesting ways. Those games are essentially platformers, and the joy of traversing levels like Airport, Bull Ring, School II and Foundry comes from the creative goals, interesting backdrops, and weird secrets which provide variety to gameplay that doesn't really add too many wrinkles in terms of new late-game mechanics or challenges.
Instead, Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer has... a bunch of beaches. Iconic real-life beaches, to be sure, each with little quirks such as levels of swell, tube patterns, and a few obstacles, but nothing close to the variety of THPS maps. You're constrained to what is, essentially, a single quarter pipe for you to ride, and it gets boring very quickly.
There are other gripes - the controls aren't as precise, the camera is absolutely dreadful and actively makes some goals more difficult than necessary, and the balance in tubes definitely needed some fine-tuning. There are positives as well - the game runs at a smooth 60FPS, the game remains pretty challenging, there's some incredibly silly secret characters, and the soundtrack's few tracks eschew the expected rap/punk/metal of a THPS game in favour of drum n bass, folk, indie rock and some almost lo-fi hip hop beat type stuff. But the game cannot overcome the fundamental flaw that navigating one obstacle over and over again is just not very fun over hours of play.
It's not really the developers' fault, as it's a problem that's built into the games' premise: a wave, no matter how dynamic it may be, will never be as interesting as a skate park, factory, or school, let alone the theme park facsimiles of entire cities or countries that the THPS series would include. But that doesn't mean I have to think it's very good.
The actual gameplay is a solid riff on the THPS formula - you're landing tricks and building longer combos with bigger point multipliers to earn higher scores within a time limit. Landing tricks fills up your special meter, which allows you to attempt more complex tricks with bigger scores attached. Each level has specific objectives to complete, such as requiring you to land specific tricks in sequence, reach a high score, or hit different objects in the level.
The game controls much the same too - launching airs, grabs, and spins off the top of a wave is achieved the same way as launching off a quarter pipe in THPS, so any muscle memory of playing those games should help here.
Neversoft have obviously had to make some tweaks to the gameplay to better fit what surfing is like in real life, and they work quite well. Carving along the face of the wave (called 'face' tricks) is essentially your way of performing a revert/manual trick to extend your combos, riding inside the tube of a wave takes the place of grinds/lip tricks (balance meter and all), and there's a much greater emphasis placed on landing 'perfect' rotations for your airs. It's a little forced, but for the most part it works, and I actually really enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay.
However, the THPS games are so good (in my opinion) because the levels are designed to include a variety of obstacles laid out in a way that allows players to chain combos together in creative and interesting ways. Those games are essentially platformers, and the joy of traversing levels like Airport, Bull Ring, School II and Foundry comes from the creative goals, interesting backdrops, and weird secrets which provide variety to gameplay that doesn't really add too many wrinkles in terms of new late-game mechanics or challenges.
Instead, Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer has... a bunch of beaches. Iconic real-life beaches, to be sure, each with little quirks such as levels of swell, tube patterns, and a few obstacles, but nothing close to the variety of THPS maps. You're constrained to what is, essentially, a single quarter pipe for you to ride, and it gets boring very quickly.
There are other gripes - the controls aren't as precise, the camera is absolutely dreadful and actively makes some goals more difficult than necessary, and the balance in tubes definitely needed some fine-tuning. There are positives as well - the game runs at a smooth 60FPS, the game remains pretty challenging, there's some incredibly silly secret characters, and the soundtrack's few tracks eschew the expected rap/punk/metal of a THPS game in favour of drum n bass, folk, indie rock and some almost lo-fi hip hop beat type stuff. But the game cannot overcome the fundamental flaw that navigating one obstacle over and over again is just not very fun over hours of play.
It's not really the developers' fault, as it's a problem that's built into the games' premise: a wave, no matter how dynamic it may be, will never be as interesting as a skate park, factory, or school, let alone the theme park facsimiles of entire cities or countries that the THPS series would include. But that doesn't mean I have to think it's very good.