THPS1+2 Bugs / Requests

This game feels like a home-run. Vicarious Visions has nailed the physics and have done something I thought wasn’t possible in 2020: Giving us a THPS game to look forward to.

This is a list curated by THPS players of bugs and features we believe should either be addressed or could add substantial value to THPS1+2.
These have been listed by measure of priority.

BUGS

Wallplant input change does not work outside of Skate Tours.
At first I assumed this was a broken toggle but after playing in all the modes it appears that the toggle will work sometimes, but mostly not. If you play online it looks like the toggle will reflect the default ollie/jump to wallplant control, even if down+ollie is enabled, though in some levels it will work fine. It’s largely inconsistent and in some specific offline modes will not reflect the down+ollie toggle at all.

If you hold ollie before the game lets you to take control of your skater, your skater does not respond until you release and re-input the control. Former players and newer ones will instinctively hold down their ollie button to begin skating when they load into the level, but doing so too early puts them in an awkward state.

Pressing the down directional button immediately into loading into a level will put you in a manual state. This is important to fix for speedrunning due to a few levels requiring you to quickturn immediately which requires a down input to start. You are unable to do this because the game automatically does an up/forward input for you as soon as you load in, and allows you to begin skating.

Special manuals take an abnormal amount of time to activate in the trick-string. The issue is you hardly ever reap the benefits of special manuals, or even see it as part of your combo chain in the trick string if you connect a grind soon enough. This means special manuals are at a big disadvantage over other special tricks because of points, such as special grabs or air tricks. I’ll post a video showing soon.

Double tap flip/grab tricks are delayed and make you bail.This happens frequently when skating around. You will do a double trick input + an addition trick and the additional trick’s timing is delayed and happens way later after the first trick causing you to bail.
At first I assumed

Controller rebinding does not save on game exit. Users that have a controller thankfully have the option to rebind controls in the game if the game doesnt properly set the controls or if they have preferred tendencies. This is great but the controls do not save on exit must be rebinded every time on launch. I have tested this with multiple controllers and different adapters. On a side note, some direct input controllers (playstation 2 controllers) have issues with rebinding the directional controls like dpad / analog.

Special trick inputs are still being executed unintentionally. I was told the sensitivity of the tricks executing had improved, however, there’s still an easy way to reproduce instances where you will execute a special trick when it shouldn’t happen. If you do a left+down grab, and then a right+down grab while in the air you will do a special grab trick that is bound to left+right grab.

When you’re in a combo and you decide to revert, your combo will break if you attempt to rush the manual input. Players will try to manual quickly to ensure they won’t lose their combo but this actually breaks it instead if you do it before reverting. That shouldn’t happen.

Random Level Bugs:

Warehouse – At spawn if you go up the quarterpipe with full stats and attempt to land a 900 you will bail.
Downtown – The kickers designed to let you wallride up to the wall are grindable and you mostly grind them instead of wallriding.
Clip – https://youtu.be/d0seV7Yt7IM
Downtown – When you ollie and grind this ledge the field of view rapidly changes. Clip – https://youtu.be/60DJgrkIoZI
School – When you dropdown on this ledge using R2, you should drop onto the ledge but instead you fall through it. Clip – https://youtu.be/cL5mbkDOLg8
Venice – This ledge slows you down immensely, typically always puts you into a boardslide grind. Something to do with the ramp? Clip – https://youtu.be/_FBs5OLxfa4

REQUESTS

When you are in an online match and the timer counts down to 0 you cannot observe other players. The players that are no longer actively participating in the game can continue skating is a nice idea, but taking away the ability to watch others is a step backwards. Being able to observe others after time runs out allows you to realize the skill ceiling in the game, show others how they can improve their skills, and confirm that the person still skating is doing so legitimately, and not cheating. This is an important feature and possibly the most important change needed for online play.

Online play has limited options and no diversity. You can’t choose the level you skate in, the types of games you play, or how long you are forced to play in that level. While I applaud the idea of “wrap it up” for casual and no timer restrictions for competitive, there needs to be something more for people to really enjoy the online experience. When you realize that you have no options in game decisions, or ways to communicate to other people like using text chat or voice, it’s hard to stick around. You’re forced to play in a pretty mindless experience of something that has so much potential.

There are also no collision-based games which require a different kind of skill and strategy and unlike scoring based games, these are never played the same way twice. When you have a variety of games and have a way to communicate with others it keeps the game fresh with variety, causing players to be around longer and finding more ways to contribute to the community.

Basically bring back:

  1. Text Chat / Voice Chat
  2. Allowing players to choose the levels they skate in and the games to play.
  3. King of the Hill
  4. Control Zone
  5. Team options
  6. Capture the Flag

Once you complete the game there is no easy way to start fresh and erase your progress. This would add replay ability to the game if there were a simpler way to start a new “career” or offline mode. Once you finish the game there is no option that allows you to start a new campaign. You have to remove the save file from your THPS1+2 save directory. For consoles this is an even bigger issue and they typically need to create a new profile or completely remove all saves. Please change this.

If a goal’s objective is to land a specific trick you must have this trick bound. This sounds like common sense but in the later games the goal would actually check what your current input was set to and make that trick part of the objective instead. I think this is a niche request but adds to quality of life.

Allow manual tricks to spin. In the majority of the THPS games you were able to rotate your manuals and manual tricks by pressing L2 for left spins and R2 for right spins (only activates when in a manual state).

Add wallpush, spacewalk, skitching vehicles Wallpush would allow you add style and more by being able to wallpush walls, or able to avoid bailing your combo by wallpushing the side of a moving vehicle. Spacewalk would save your skater from a situation where they have zero speed and are stuck in a non-moving state. Skitching would allow you to latch onto the back of a vehicle and add interesting moments when you release and have a lot of momentum.

Xbox control presets.Users coming from PC/Xbox versions of the THPS games will be accustomed to this control scheme which is not currently possible to recreate in the controller binding menu. Notably, spin/revert would be bound to the same buttons.

Make the School II long half-wall grindable. It only adds benefits and it was recognized as a positive change to the version of School II that was ported to THUG1 by Neversoft.