As a long-time fan of the THPS games, this seemed like it could be a fun twist on that formula. Characters look great, for the most part, and while the 'birb' humour and puns may not be for everyone, I found it ranged from amusing to eye-rolling without dipping into annoying territory. The soundtrack is also good, with a selection of original jazzy/funk tracks as well as some licensed rock and punk songs.

Unfortunately, the game fails most with the core skating gameplay. The controls just don't feel tight enough and it's far too common to get stuck on bits of the scenery. Your skater also feels a bit weightless - sometimes just trying to corner will cause you to fall over, and going off a ramp at the wrong angle can send you into a barrel roll.

These issues with precision controls wouldn't be such big problems if the levels didn't become increasingly reliant on traversal to reach the next objective. Besides being more frustrating, later levels just aren't as interesting and reuse a lot of the same assets - I can understand a load of skater magazines in someone's bedroom but why are they also littering the office and server room levels? It's also a shame for a game about skateboarding birds to not feature any natural spaces - an actual park seems like an obvious choice, for example, and would go a long way to mixing up the visuals and colour palette.

Overall, I can't recommend the game unless the bird theme really sells it to you. THPS fans in particular should steer clear because it just doesn't measure up to the games that inspired it.

[h1]Cute visuals, a quirky sense of humour and excellent OST can't make up for the frustrating controls and poor level design.[/h1] As a long-time fan of the THPS games, this seemed like it could be a fun twist on that formula. Characters look great, for the most part, and while the 'birb' humour and puns may not be for everyone, I found it ranged from amusing to eye-rolling without dipping into annoying territory. The soundtrack is also good, with a selection of original jazzy/funk tracks as well as some licensed rock and punk songs. Unfortunately, the game fails most with the core skating gameplay. The controls just don't feel tight enough and it's far too common to get stuck on bits of the scenery. Your skater also feels a bit weightless - sometimes just trying to corner will cause you to fall over, and going off a ramp at the wrong angle can send you into a barrel roll. These issues with precision controls wouldn't be such big problems if the levels didn't become increasingly reliant on traversal to reach the next objective. Besides being more frustrating, later levels just aren't as interesting and reuse a lot of the same assets - I can understand a load of skater magazines in someone's bedroom but why are they also littering the office and server room levels? It's also a shame for a game about skateboarding birds to not feature any natural spaces - an actual park seems like an obvious choice, for example, and would go a long way to mixing up the visuals and colour palette. Overall, I can't recommend the game unless the bird theme [i]really[/i] sells it to you. THPS fans in particular should steer clear because it just doesn't measure up to the games that inspired it.