Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube)

To do: Document the debug menus and it's entirety. Also document the prototypes on Hidden Palace.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, commonly referred to as THPS3, is the third installment of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, with the first to be released on sixth-generation consoles, and is notable for being the first PlayStation 2 game to offer online play through off-the-shelf USB modems, well before the release of Sony's official network adapter.

If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man! You win some, lose some, all the same to me. The pleasure is to play, makes no difference what you say. I don't share your greed, the only card I need is the Ace of Spades. The Ace of Spades!

Debug Mode#

Enabling the below code will put DEBUG in the main menu and in-game. From here, you can view models, toggle debug info, load test levels and more.

Debug Camera#

When on the Level Select screen, choose a level, and wait for the loading icon (Neversoft Eyeball) to spin three times and then stop moving. As soon as it stops moving, press and hold the START button until the level finishes loading. If successful, the game will be paused and in "debug camera mode". The left analog stick is used to pan the camera, while the right analog stick moves the camera left/right and forward/backward. R1/R2 will move the camera up or down. There is no way to exit this mode, and the console must be reset.

Unused Levels#

Files for multiple unfinished levels exist on the disk. Through file tweaking, they can be playable once again. Alternatively, one can use a mod such as Lost Levels Mod, THPS3 1.3, or THPS3 LevelMod on the Windows version of the game to add these levels to the level select menu.

Foo#

A debug area. It contains a few character models, multiple half-pipes lacking textures, street cones, floating bowls, and a circle of roadway with cars zooming around it. It was most likely used to test new textures and moving objects.

Oil Rig#

"Exclusive" to the original Xbox version of the game, the files for Oil Rig exist on the Windows and PS2 discs. This level would eventually be used on all versions of Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.

Paris#

Named as "Rooftops" in the files on the disc, this level was an early announced level that ultimately got cut. The map was planned to represent Paris, France, featuring Eiffel Tower Banks, Louvre Pyramid, Arc de Triomphe & Esplinade, Trocadero & Palace de Chaillot, Catacombs, Pont Alexander III. According to the game's files it was meant to be an exclusive level for the GameCube version, but at a certain point its development was halted.

One of Neversoft developers commented this level on their Facebook page:

"While we can't remember why it was cut. Here's a short description:

LEVEL 6 - PARIS

Requested by Tony Hawk and Geoff Rowley, this large exploratory level will encompass the Eiffel Tower Banks as well as other famous Parisian skate spots. The banks (no longer around) were located under one of the gigantic steel footings for the Eiffel Tower – providing the perfect dramatic centerpiece for the level. Lots of skaters use the Trocadero as a local spot, especially the parks on either side of the fountain. The Eiffel Tower is an instantly recognizable landmark, and the Banks are a famous skate spot. The Louvre and Arch are also highly recognizable, but will take some tweaking to make skateable. The catacombs offer a nice contrast to the wet and rainy outside areas. We started on that level and then abandoned it at some point. I’m guessing the assets for the level still got burned on the disk because we didn’t take the time to clean them out of our game’s tree."

Previously Undocumented Cheat Codes#

While a handful of cheat codes were officially published for the game (such as backdoor, popcorn, idkfa, etc), the game's internal scripts actually contain definitions for many more. These cheat code definitions are stored as hashed values (iteratively hashed using CRC32), meaning they cannot be trivially decoded. Through brute-forcing possible strings, several additional cheat codes were discovered in the scripts that were never published in cheat books or official guides.

Unused Graphics#

Contained in the images subfolder within the PlayStation 2 version's SKATE3.WAD are all sorts of bizarre bitmaps. Several of these pictures even appear in multiple future releases from Activision.

An additional subfolder named Miscellaneous includes two more paired with rdf files which contain texture info.

Unused Audio#

Airport Pickpocket Dialogue#

There are several voice clips for the airport pickpockets that go unused.

The pickpockets were originally terrorists, but were changed due to the September 11 attacks. These changes were likely made during that transition.

Regional Differences#

The Japanese release includes three extra skaters: Junnosuke Y, Shin Okada, and Hiroki Saegusa.

In addition to those three, a fourth secret skater exclusive to the Japanese PlayStation 2 release exists named Sukehachi, which might be a play on the word "Skate" in Japanese. No cheat codes exist to unlock the skater; however, a pre-made save file available through one of the Dengeki PS2 download discs has him unlocked. Dengeki never released a similar disc for GameCube, but he's present on the Japanese GameCube release as well.

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