But having Neversoft work on COD games was much more important. Until closing them became more important. It's sad, but I think the Tony Hawk franchise and the extreme sports spinoffs it created (I remember a BMX one, a surfing one, and there was probably another from Activision too) was the beginning of Activision's new business strategy, which is "make something relatively original, then GLUT THE MARKET WITH SEQUELS/SPINOFFS". First THPS, then Guitar Hero, now COD and Skylanders are doing it.
Not sure about the other spinoffs, but TH 1-3 and Dave Mirra 1 and 2 were genuinely enjoyable. This is just pure crap. Shamefully bad. I wonder if any of the people who worked on it or even play tested it have ever even played the 1st 3 games in the series. If trying to make things look pretty (which this game does not) has become so difficult, time consuming, and expensive that it stands in the way of making playable and fun games, perhaps we should slow the visual arms race down a bit until the gameplay catches up.
Hmmmm, seems to me the game itself isn't even bad. It's worse, It's not finished! I think had this game been finished, it would be a decent THPS title.
The spinoffs and sequels weren't bad, per se, but they came out so quickly that it glutted the market. A mainline THPS game came out every year between 1999 and 2007, then a BMX and snowboarding game in 2001 as well as 2x for the Xbox and 2002 saw surfing and ANOTHER BMX game. That's not counting games like Dave Mirra (which was by Acclaim) and any of the other extreme sports games. Same with Guitar Hero, the games were fun enough, because the base experience was good, but then they came out with at least one release a year, with Rock Band doing the same, plus DLC (GH didn't even transfer DLC), and the users were like "nah, we'll just stick with what we have, thanks".
Gotta take into consideration that Rock Band was the one that expanded it to other instruments when GH was just guitar. GH always just felt like Guitar Freaks with licensed American music until they went to full band mode. Rock Band took it to another level and left GH to play catch up.
Activision over-saturated the market and effectively shot themselves in the foot. They've done it multiple times. Something relatively original from one of their dev teams will catch on and they rush to put out 98573498745 related games before anybody can emulate the formula. They want all of the market share. What do they care anymore, though. CoD has given them Nintendo money that they can probably take baths in for years.
I liked THPS4 in particular because it had 720p output on Xbox, and the "open level with timed challenges" design was executed fairly well. (Bringing back the cash was a good idea; That and the random animated silliness of the levels brought plenty of life to the game.) Simply put, I could still feel genuine effort being put into the series by the fourth entry, but I never finished it. I never played Underground or any of the other sequels, so I can't speak for the rest of the series. THPS2x was great on the Xbox, by the way; Lots of value in that one game.
True, but it doesn't mean that nobody in the US had ever played or heard of it. People who were into Bemani games in the early 00's, like I was, at least knew about the game.
To be honest I don't think it is as bad as everyone has made out. I have played it for around an hour and an half and I have to say it is quite enjoyable, nowhere near as good as the most recent ones but it is still playable. The bits I don't like about it is the trick list is as basic as THPS1, you can't do varied grind, flatland or lip tricks and that is a bit of a downer as that is how I boosted my combos in multi player. One other issue I have is there is no way of knowing how your progressing in regards to unlocking levels or in missions it would have been nice to have had some sort of visual aid to know if you where still within AM, PRO or Sick bracket when completing them. In regards to the glitches I really haven't experienced many yet no matter how badly I land ect.
Nice to see they didn't learn their lesson from Tony Hawk HD in 2013, perhaps it's a spritual remake. Shameful.
Apparently Activision's THPS licence was about to run out, so it was either push the game out (and maybe try and fix it after the fact), or not release it at all. No way in hell I'm buying it, either way. Everything about it looks just plain bad.
Just makes me wonder why they were so desperate to keep the license. I mean, they hadn't done anything with it in years, so why did they have to shit out this game to keep it?
THPS HD and this game were both rushed. It wouldn't surprise me if the Xbox 360 version has code from THPS HD.
The implication was that they weren't going to keep the licence, so they don't give a shit about the franchise and just shat this one out to squeeze a last bit of cash from it (see also: their not sending review copies, barely any advertising). This is all internet speculation based on a 2002 licence document which said the licence would expire in 2015, so take it with a pinch of salt.
That's true, but the license expiring puts the sudden resurgence of the franchise, its release timing, and absolutely poor quality into perspective. With Activision's reputation in mind, the pieces fit together into a solid theory. Either way, it's a shame Activision didn't try something more deserving of the "5" in the title.
Here's that license document if anybody's interested. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...nsing-agreement-with-activision-76357687.html
We'll see that when it's released for the previous gen. Accessing files for the X360 versions of games is almost always easy.
