Anyone here playing Tony Hawk 3? How the mother-F do you "Grind the molen pit" (or whatever, I forget the wording) on the first level? It's the only objective there I can't do.

Other than that, I'm really enjoying it. There are a few very tricky objectives on some levels, just as there was in THPS 2, but I'm easily passing enough to move on. I'm certainly not back into the groove I used to be in with that game, and can only string together a paltry 35,000-point combo at best. I used to be able to regularly get over 50k at a time. Haven't gotten full hang of the revert yet, either.

I'd love to try it online, but hell if I'm going to buy a $45 USB ethernet adaptor just to play ONE game online.

"Anyone here playing Tony Hawk 3? How the mother-F do you "Grind the molen pit" (or whatever, I forget the wording) on the first level? It's the only objective there I can't do."

You grind the thing that dumps the lava into the pit.. wait for the alarms to go off and that signifies that it's in place. Run straight towards the pit, olly up, and grind the .. uh, thing.

"I used to be able to regularly get over 50k at a time. Haven't gotten full hang of the revert yet, either."

Revert only helps on the landing from air tricks (press L2 as you land); you can still use the manual to string together virtually everything else. The training is pretty good for demoing the revert and how to string it together.

"hell if I'm going to buy a $45 USB ethernet adaptor just to play ONE game online."

See, that's what's great about USB-- it works on a variety of platforms. An USB ethernet adapter is not essential, but it's something that is handy to have around. At least in my experience..

>Revert only helps on the landing from air tricks (press L2 as you land)

Yeah, I know how it works, and I can do it no problem. Vert trick, revert on land, manual, keep going. I just don't have it to the point where I actually USE it all the time like I should.

I've got no use whatsoever for a USB ethernet adapter beyond playing THPS3 on the PS2. I only have one computer, I can't afford another and probably won't be able to for a long time, and every machine I ever see has ethernet already. For me, it's a $45 fee to play the game online. No thanks.

You can use a standard USB Ethernet adapter on a PS2? I can use my old USB Ethernet adapter on a PS2?! I can plug a PS2 into my hub just as easily as an Xbox?

Goddamnit! Now I'm back in the same Xbox or PS2 quandary that I thought I had resolved a month ago.

Only certain USB ethernet adaptors are certified to work, others might not. There's a list in the manual. And that's just for THPS 3 - future games that use Sony's Ethernet/modem add-on might not work with a USB ethernet adaptor at all, since they plug into different ports and will be recognized and supported differently by games. It's sort of a compatability question mark until the games actually come out.

Ok, finally got my PS2 problem worked out, and have been playing GTA3 and THPS3 for the past two days. I'm really liking them both.

But woah nellie if Tony Hawk 3 isn't far and away the best game in the series so far. There's so much to do in every level, and I like the fact that the goals are different for different skaters based on their strengths (Rowland gets grind goals, Hawk gets grab goals, etc). I'm liking GTA3 as well, but I'm really only playing it when my thumb starts cramping up from trying to execute combos.

And, yeah, you need to grind the posts on the side of the bucket above the molten pit.

Is there anything of note in that huge generator room that opens when you do the valve goal in the foundry? I've grinded to the top and it seems to just end.

-Ron

"But woah nellie if Tony Hawk 3 isn't far and away the best game in the series so far."

Hasn't this all been done before, though? If you've played Tony Hawk 1, you have no need to play TH3. Where's the innovation? It's like Quake, but with skateboards.

Shrug. If you take away the primary innovation of online play-- which is VERY cool, though it's awfully proprietary even by console standards-- there isn't a whole lot that's fundamentally changed with the gameplay over THPS2. The revert, and that's about it.

I like TH3. But I hesitate to recommend it to people unless they A) they haven't played TH at all, in which case they should rush to the software store immediately and start mentally composing their "this is the best game ever" post in advance; or B) they're big fans of the series and aren't tired of the gameplay yet.

I just don't see what you'd gain by blowing $50 on a brand new TH3 when you can get the same gameplay experience, minus a few new doodads, in a $19 copy of TH2 on the Dreamcast or PC.

Unless, of course, you plan to play online a lot. That's definitely unique and compelling.

"Hasn't this all been done before, though?"

You mean you needlessly criticizing something for not being absolutely, 100% original? Yes, it has. OVER and OVER again.

"If you've played Tony Hawk 1, you have no need to play TH3."

I have no need to play any games.

However, the Tony Hawk games are, by your own confession, great. So a Tony Hawk game with better control, better graphics, and better levels is even greater. Sorry that my attention span is such that I can enjoy something for more than its initial novelty.

-Ron

http://www.stratosgroup.com/features/interviews/dperry.shtml

SG: What makes Sacrifice cool? You've said on your site (www.dperry.com) that you won't take on a new game anymore without a 'hook' that will make the game 'different and fun.' What's Sacrifice's hook?

DP: It makes the world of RPGs a fun place to be for hard core ACTION game fans. I honestly have NEVER seen an RPG with action this intense. It's like Quake meets Diablo. I am personally way too impatient for traditional RPG style games... Sacrifice steps up the pace about 20 notches. So it's really a very fresh, truly cross-genre game. Of course I am biased, but trust me if you play against someone who knows how to play the game well online, you will not have time to reach for your coffee. (Seriously)

Also-- please refrain from arguing with my doppleganger. It's not really me unless the name is clickable (as above).

I'd like to add this. Those of you (and you know who you are) that had a problem with me calling Sacrifice "Quake with delusions of grandeur"-- bite me. The game's DESIGNER says the same goddamn thing.

And it's true.

I hate to interrupt your crusade with facts, but Dave Perry isn't the designer of Sacrifice. His name isn't even in the credits except as the president of Shiny.

-Tom

Fair enough. He's not the designer. But do you honestly think that he had no control over the Sacrifice project?

Here's some more fodder for you Quake fans.

http://pc.ign.com/news/23326.html

IGNPC: From what we've seen of the game, Sacrifice isn't really a pure RTS game, but rather it combines elements from strategy, action, and role-playing games. How would you describe Sacrifice?

Martin Brownlow: Personally I would describe Sacrifice as a "third person strategy" game. At heart, the game is a real-time strategy game played from a third person camera, focusing the action around your roving commander, the wizard. The resources and tech tree have been "simplified" from most other strategy games, streamlining the experience of playing Sacrifice down to just the fun bits; the fighting. Through fighting you gain more resources (denying them your opponents) and through fighting you gain experience and hence levels, opening up the tech-tree as you rise. In the single player game, the choices you make have persistent consequences; the most obvious of which is that as you change which god you worship, you effectively mix and match the spells you like best to define your wizard.

IGNPC: How's multiplay shaping up at this point? What different type of multiplay game types are you looking at now?

Martin Brownlow: Multiplayer is great fun; fast and furious, almost FPS like in intensity. There's almost always a multiplayer game of Sacrifice going on somewhere in the office. At this point we have planned a few variations on the basic game, but these have not yet been implemented; we need to concentrate on balancing the basic game before worrying about variations. The variations currently under consideration are Soul Harvest (winner is first to hold # of souls), Gib-o-rama (winner is first to gib # creatures - a gib occurs when something takes a much larger amount of damage than he has left) and slaughter (winner is first to get # of kills). In addition, there is also allied play. Couple these with a changeable experience gain rate, gib rate, # souls and start and maximum experience levels per game, options to collect allied souls and auto-gib when something dies, and a shipping map editor (anyone who does not have the map when they join a game gets it transferred to them in the game lobby) and you have a heck of a lot of multiplayer options.