What do you remember most about the original Tony Hawk skateboarding games? The rush of putting together an epic thread of tricks? The exhilaration of notching ever-higher scores? Yeah, those were all great. You'll get those in the Tony Hawk HD remake that hits Xbox Live today. But the pain… the pain was always the best part.
It's up for debate, but in my opinion, the best thing about Hawk's groundbreaking extreme sports titles was the way their virtual skaters painfully crashed out of failed stunts. Everyone who played Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 & 2 remembers characters leaving their boards in horrifically tangled contortion of limbs and in Tony Hawk HD, the bails look fiercer than ever. The footage above comes from my first few runs with THHD. In it, you can see the game's titular athlete and my own Xbox 360 avatar spraying blood all over the Warehouse level. Things get better, I promise. A review of Tony Hawk HD will be on Kotaku tomorrow.