Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

The game's reality, however, constantly reminds you that this isn't the Tony Hawk you remember. Inconsistent framerate, textures that pop in, and physics quirks that launch you into the sky mar the experience regularly.

THPS5 is not the game we deserve. We don't know what happened there, but it's a messy game in many aspects. Still, when its gameplay gets to shine we get some of the feelings we expected from it, so we can only hope for some patches to help it get closer to what it should be.

The core skating feels good, but never satisfying, and everything surrounding it just feels flat. I wanted this to the be the resurgence of the series, but it feels more like a budget game wrapped in a AAA game price.

The visuals have their fair amount of issues, the gameplay can't quite measure up between the frustrating missions and poorly placed "slam" technique, and the online sessions need a serious overhaul. It's still playable, and might be fun for devoted fans for the series, but there's no question that a lot more polish could've gone into Tony Hawk's revival.

The tragedy is that THPS5 gives us a tantalizing glimpse of the game's full potential - but doesn't realize it. With an online mode that really meant something, with better presentation and graphics, with more interesting and imaginative missions, with a more comprehensive create-a-skater, and more intuitive create-a-park mode, this could have been a truly great game. But sadly it's lacking in all those areas.

There are flashes of brilliance, but much of that is piggybacking off of the foundation its predecessors have already created.

It's a pity, but THPS5 is a step back for the series.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 is not a complete disaster. The majority of its flaws and maybe even some of the problems could be overlooked if the game were simply more fun to play. However, even had that been the case, THPS5 comes nowhere near justifying a full $60 price tag. It’s disheartening to see a once proud series come to its likely end in such a fashion.

A disgrace. When double jumps aren't the worst part, something's gone terribly wrong. [Dec 2015, p.78]

It is impossible to look past the constant problems and bugs. Most of these don't make the game unplayable, but still cause a lot of bother along the way.

Despite some noble efforts to take Tony Hawk's back to its roots, Pro Skater 5 is ruined by glitches, sluggish movement and dull, lifeless levels. What might have been a glorious return ends up an unfortunate swan song. [Issue#130, p.78]

The soundtrack in THPS5 is good enough, but the game is riddled with technical glitches and design missteps, making it a huge step back for the series.

One of gaming's greatest series bails horribly, loses its high score and sinks to a depressing new low. Truly awful.

THPS 5 is a real cold spike in the franchise lover's hearts: all the good things this series had have been blown away by wrong design decisions, bad gameplay and poor controls.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 is a mess of half-cocked ideas, astoundingly poor execution, and technical woes that layer a little insult on top of injury.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 is a failure in almost every way a game can be a failure. Terrible level design, rampant glitches, minimal content, janky gameplay, and a complete lack of polish all mar what's (hopefully) the final entry in a previously great series.