Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 (2015) Online

With games like WWE 2K15, Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, Rory McIlroys PGA Tour, and Sonic Forces, it seems that games that take a big step back of what made their previous games so great to begin with were sadly starting to become common. But this game takes that to a whole new level and then some, because while the previously mentioned games were disappointing, at least there was still a way to get some fun out of them, even it were far and few between. This game has nothing at all, as it has absolutely nothing that made the original 4 amazing. This game is an extreme spit in the face to those who are fans in the series, as instead of being an amazing successor to the great 4 games, it ends up being a complete disaster, and after waiting 13 years, it hurts that much more. The visuals look BARELY better than a PS2 game, the gameplay is a downgrade, as a few buttons are mapped to the same button for some weird reason, the missions aren't that fun at all, the level design is painfully bland, and the online is completely broken. This game is so terrible, that I don't even know if it would even be good in the mid 2000s. I've looked and looked, and there's just nothing about this dumpster fire that's worth a damn at all, especially if you're a fan of the series as a whole. I recommend everyone to just avoid this like the plague, as it not only may be the worst game of 2015, but also the biggest step back in any video game franchise of all time.

Pro Skater 5 is a sports game revolving around skateboarding...However, I use the term "skateboarding" in the loosest way possible because almost nothing in this game even vaguely resembles professional or even recreational skateboarding.

Pro Skater 5 is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. If you want to get through this sewage pit and come out clean as quickly as possible, get the PlayStation 4 version; the textures are smoother, the load times are shorter, and the control scheme is more responsive. The Xbox One version suffers from more noticeable texture pop-in, disappearing objects, obvious slowdowns, and frequent hang-ups. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions...really aren't worth mentioning.

The first noticeable problem with this game are its graphics; this is a PlayStation 4 game released in 2015, and it looks worse than a PlayStation 2 game released in 2005! Everything is outlined with black, including the skater, which makes things feel really cheap. Many environmental textures and all the character models are muddy, low-res, and angular. Speaking of character models, where the hey is everybody? Unless you're playing online, it feels like you're the last human on Earth. Nobody in the stadium, nobody on the beach, nobody in school, nobody in the park, the city, the army bunkers, outer space, gone! All gone!

So, you might be thinking this is like Left Behind where everybody just ups and vanishes, and the objective in this game is to skateboard around the world because that's the fastest way to get around without worrying about a fuel tank. Nope. Instead, you're expected to ignore the fact everybody's gone and just do stupid, random, pointless, and irritating tasks; all while skateboarding, such as delivering ice cream cones to an empty swimming pool and pushing balls and alien eggs out of more swimming pools. You are also tasked with destroying evil-looking robots on certain stages, and collecting DVDs and VHS tapes. There is no real reason for any of these tasks, and none of it has anything to do with skateboarding!

Accompanying these ludicrous tasks is some of the worst music I have heard in a game. The soundtrack is mostly punk rock/hip hop from bands that I have never heard of before. It sounds okay at first, but nearly every song is indistinguishable, so it feels like everything is on endless repeat. I even had a few family members approach me saying, "turn off that music, it's so obnoxious!" I quickly resorted to turning the music off in the options menu.

The controls in Pro Skater 5 are very finnicky and difficult to understand. Performing tricks is needlessly convoluted, some controls are mapped to the same button, and worse yet, once you discover how to vert, perform tricks, revert, then manual in that exact order, you discover some missions can be easily cheated. Mastering the game ranges from being too easy and completely breezy to being very time-consuming, frustrating, and maddeningly unfair.

Out of all the games I have reviewed so far, Pro Skater 5 is easily the worst. If this is not the worst game ever made, it's definitely somewhere among the worst. I cannot believe how much wrong this game did. Everything this game does from the mission design to the soundtrack to the controls to the progression was just broken on so many levels. I am aware Pro Skater is one of the most esteemed video game franchises of all-time, and I have read many editorials that claim these games had a huge impact on them as children and teenagers...then this game destroyed all its dignity in one fell swoop.