I’m a few hours into play Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5, and I already don’t like a lot of things about it. But one problem rises above the rest and is emblematic of the many other issues.
It takes 10 seconds to retry a mission in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, that’s an eternity. This franchise has always put a ton of emphasis on getting the one perfect run to reach that super-high score. That’s only possible if you get off to a good start, which means you’re going to want to try to retry a ton. In older Tony Hawk games, retrying took less than a second. You hit a button, the screen would flash white, and you’d get to start all over fresh from the beginning.
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It takes a full 10 seconds to retry a THPS5 mission. That's craaaaazy.https://t.co/RC7QDZshVb pic.twitter.com/plSsi0Yp9d
— Grubb (@JeffGrubb) September 30, 2015
And like I said, this is emblematic of many other dumb choices developer Robomodo (which previously worked on the Ride, Shred, and HD entries in the THPS series) made.
The reason you have to wait 10 seconds is because the game is loading a new online instance for you on the online servers. It does this every time — even when you’re playing alone!
I have no idea why I would need the server to spool up a multiplayer session when I’m on my own and under no threat of having a friend join me. Hell, some of these missions specifically do not have the option to play cooperatively, but you still have to wait for the Robomodo backend before you can do anything.
It all makes for a depressing, slow, and unacceptable Tony Hawk experience.