How to lose your head in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD multiplayer
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD is a remake of two classic games, rebuilt by Robomodo in Unreal Engine with excellent accuracy. It brings back several classic modes for multiplayer (now supporting four players, online only) but adds a new throwback to the earlier days of gaming.
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After skaters enter the level in Big Head Elimination mode, their heads start to expand. The rate of expansion increases for as long as the round lasts, and the only way to counter the bloat is to do tricks and bust mad flips, as the kids say.
There is one caveat, though. If you hit 100 percent inflation, even while you're in the middle of a massive line, your head will explode. It's a tough balance, knowing when to bank your tricks to prevent your head's steadily expanding affliction and when to keep going. But, hey, if you fail first, you can spend the rest of the match tormenting others as a headless skater.
Graffiti and Time Attack are two returning modes, fondly remembered by anyone around to play the first two Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games on the PSOne. Graffiti unleashes skaters into an environment for an allotted amount of time, with the goal being to trick off different objects littered throughout. The player with the highest score on a ramp, rail, etc. "tags" it as their own and moves on. At the end of the round, the skater with the most domain wins.
Time Attack is a bit more self-explanatory, dropping skaters into locales and tasking them with amassing the most points to win the round before the timer runs out. On the smaller levels this is a more harrowing prospect, as skaters can run into each other and kill each other's lines with relative ease.
Rounding out the rest of the multiplayer suite in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD is Free Skate, a less hectic multiplayer mode where everyone just chills out and skates around a single map like best buds – at least, that's how we imagine it'd be if gravity didn't totally conquer our social circle so many moons ago.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD launches on Xbox Live Arcade on July 18 for 1200 MS Points ($15).
