TONY HAWK PROSKATER HD

Nowadays, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater exists as a sort of salutary tale: proof that even what appear to be the mightiest franchises can crumble away to dust if they aren't treated with skill and care. After countless iterations, the once-popular skating game was fatally holed on the twin rocks of a skateboard-shaped controller which didn't work and EA's beautifully executed Skate. And anyway, in its latter years, it had taken the Elvis career-path: becoming grotesquely bloated and a parody of its former self. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD, a sort of mash-up of the first two gamesavailable as an Xbox Live Arcade download (it will soon be available on the PlayStation Network, too), recreated in the Unreal engine, at least addresses the latter problem.

THPS HD's watchword is minimalism, which should please those who idolised the game when it appeared at the end of the 1990s but later grew disillusioned. For your 1,200 Microsoft Points, you get a mere seven levels, albeit classic ones including Venice Beach and Downhill Jam. Each has 10 main goals; to unlock subsequent levels, you must complete a prescribed number within your allotted two minutes per run. The goals are reassuringly familiar, including collecting the letters S, K, A, T and E, and finding the hidden DVD (which has superseded the videotape, in keeping with the times). Each completed objective earns you money, which you can spend on upping your stats (or buying new boards).