Well I've had a chance to sit down and play it properly now, *sigh* lets start with the good. (Bearing in mind I've been a fan since THPS2 and have owned every game since)
GOOD
Skater Vids - Its nice to see these back, they were always one of my fave parts of the old THPS games.
Cutscenes - The goals are very well filmed, far more so than any previous TH game.
BAD
Realism - It seems as if they've seen Skate and gone running in the other direction, how TH games have never been realistic but this takes it to a new level. Every kicker seems to send you 20 feet in the air and simply jumping on a rail at slow speed suddenly sends you flying forwards, Everything feels very floaty. The goal where you had to jump on to a rail on top of the car? I had to place the kicker miles away from the car or I missed the rail by a good ten feet.
Balance - What the **** have they done to the balance meters?? they are utterly **** now.
Aggro Kick - Its rubbish, feels like they've tryed to do a rhyth1m thing like grind comboing in JSRF and failed, I dont want to fly arround the streets faster than a speeding bullet, hit a kicker and go into orbit.
Nail The Grab/Manual (probably) - NTT was crap in Project 8, its a good idea thats been poorly implimented, now we have grabs and manuals as well? Slowing down time should slow down my body as well, I should not be able to jump off a QP and do 6 grabs before I land!! Its a disjointed feature that takes you out of any line you are trying to do, utter crap.
Levels - Drab, uninspiring. Seems like they've tried to take the levels in the opposite direction of the rest of the game and make them realistic, why???
CONCLUSION
Id be surprised if this game got above a 6/10 from reviewers, its simply shocking. There are a couple of saving graces, the story looks pretty good and well filmed, the video editing feature sounds excellent. Its just a shame that none of this will matter because the game mechanic is so poor. Definitely the worst in the series so far.
Demo Score 3/10
