Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, often called THPS4, is the fourth game in Tony Hawk's series. It was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision for the GameCube, GBA, PlayStation, PS2, and Xbox. In 2003 it was published for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Tapwave Zodiac.

The game, reportedly, would be the last Pro Skater in the series, though some took this to mean it would be the last Tony Hawk's game in the entire series.

Gameplay
The game is a departure from the previous three games' Career mode, in which the player had a set amount of time in order to find and complete goals. THPS4 instead featured a Career mode more similar to Free Skate mode, in which there was no time limit to explore the level, and the goals are given by characters found throughout the levels when the player talks to them. Most of them do have a set amount of time to be completed, but this time varies from goal to goal (plus, letting time run out does not end your run; the player just needs to talk to the NPC to try again). This Career mode would be later seen as the Story modes of Tony Hawk's Underground series, American Wasteland, Tony Hawk's Project 8 and Proving Ground.

New career mode
THPS4 is a milestone in the series since Neversoft refused to use classic "2 minutes run" system. Now player was allowed to skate around freely and choose the goal he wants to complete.

Money system
Money system has returned in THPS4. Cash icons are located all over the levels. Unlike THPS2, it is allowed to spend cash on clothes, cheats and videos, but stats and tricks are awarded by goals here.

Pro Trick Objects
Unique in THPS4 - each map provides up to seven skate objects that can be toggled by player. Usually it's a kicker or a quarter-pipe, but some maps provide more complex constructions.

Double-tap flips/grabs
Known in THPS3 as hidden combos, it was refined and extended, adding double-tap variation for almost each trick in the game.

Skitching
The player can grab onto the rear bumper of a vehicle (much like Marty McFly in Back to the Future), moving to either end of the bumper to avoid obstacles. Skitching is used for speed boost.

Level Out
This feature allows skater to "level out" aka orient himself horizontally in air to prevent bailing. If there is quarter-pipe on the other side, then Spine Transfer is performed.

Spine transfer
Allows the player to move from one quarter pipe to another as long as they were back-to-back. This also applies to lip tricks: now skater will land on the other side of quarter-pipe if balance gone off the meter.

Manual/lip/grind extensions
While is was partially implemented in THPS3, it was refined in THPS4, adding more tricks and functionality.

Wallplant (later as Wallieplant)
This trick extends Wallie and was introduced by the analogy with No Comply - Boneless. Wallplant allows to reach higher areas jumping off the Wallride. THPS4 Wallplant was later renamed to Wallieplant and Wallplant name was given to another trick, which may be confusing.

Powerslide
This move allows skater to invert his direction on flat very fast. It looks like a revert, no any special messages are shown. R2+L2+Down combination was chosen, but it was conflicting with switch stance move, so it was changed in THUG.

Levels

 * College
 * San Francisco
 * Alcatraz
 * Kona Skatepark
 * Shipyard
 * London
 * Zoo
 * Carnival
 * Chicago (originally from Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX 2)

The Carnival and Chicago levels are exclusive to the Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox and Windows versions. The San Francisco level is absent from the Game Boy Advance version. The Playstation version does not feature the Zoo level, but features two extra levels:


 * The Sewers
 * Little Big Kitchen

Soundtrack

 * Full article: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 Soundtrack

As in THPS3, player could remove any song from the the list by using special toggle menu. There are 37 songs in the complete list. The actual amount of songs in the game varies between platforms.

Reception
THPS4 received positive reviews gaining high scores. Along with praising refined trick system and larger levels, critics only complained about same graphic levels, as they've seen in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3