A huge transfer.

Few games have had the kind of success that the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series has routinely enjoyed. From the breakthrough gameplay of the original to the outstanding improvements of its sequel, the Hawkman's games have completely redefined extreme sports gaming.

But when you've reached the pinnacle of achievement, how do you get better? How do you climb higher once you've reached untold heights? The view from the mountaintop might be pretty, but it's a long fall down. After a meteoric rise, how do you avoid the inevitable Behind the Music decline?

Simple. Ask Neversoft. Then, give them a PS2.

Indeed, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 continues the somewhat disturbing tradition of wowing the difficult-to-wow GR staff by taking advantage of the new hardware and pumping out another classic. The champ is still on top of its game, and with its fantastic graphics, control and gameplay, remains undefeated.

If you have never played a Tony Hawk game, you must be from the Moon and probably don't understand Earth language. Rest assured that you should go find a copy of one of the older games and become familiar with it, pronto.

For the most part, the guts of the game are intact. You pick a skater and take to 8 massive levels (with several more to unlock) in an effort to accomplish a number of goals and nabbing extra stat points. More goals lead to more levels and the stat points can be divvied out in nine statistical categories.

The hallmark of the series has been its terrific level design, and nothing has changed here. The first level, The Foundry, is filled to the rim with ramps and rails, a nice introduction to the game. From there, however, things get tougher and tougher. Whether you're busting up in the treetops of the Canada level or riding the plethora of rails in the Airport, you'll be right at home with the best level design around. It seems that no matter where you are on the level, there are plenty of things to do and combos to try.

The setup is the same as past versions with three medal competitions. For that matter, the general game flow is pretty much identical to earlier games. You'll spend a ton of time just trying to nail the goals on each level in order to unlock videos and new characters. I would have preferred a little more innovation here, but the fact remains that it's tons of fun.

But even THPS vets will find THPS 3 to be a new challenge, because it assumes you're familiar with past iterations. While the basics are the same, there are some important new changes that lead to a whole new level of madcap trick mania.

The biggest change is the 'revert' maneuver, which allows you to link vertical tricks together. By pressing L2 or R2 right as you land an air trick, you can continue the trick into a manual, then off for more combos. It might seem minor, but when you get good with the revert you'll wind up with some incredible combinations and monster point totals.

To match this new skill, the point requirements on some of the levels are insane. Los Angeles asks for a 400,000-point 'Sick' score. It makes you scour the level for the best lines, and even then it's a tall order. This game was obviously made for fans, not newbies.

But newbie or otherwise, all will agree that it looks terrific. The framerate blazes at 60 fps with rare hiccups. The skaters look great, particularly when balancing on lips or manuals, swaying from side to side trying to maintain their balance Cirque Du Soleil style. The details are excellent.

The graphical depth can be found in the enhanced Create-a-Skater, which gives you a bigger wardrobe than Joan Rivers at the Oscars. From height and weight to hats, glasses, tattoos, socks, backpacks and kneepads, the creator is reminiscent of the one from the Acclaim WWF games. That one ruled, and so does this one. I actually made a skater that looks eerily like me, minus the super-sized head to hold my massive brain.

They even managed to fix a few old problems by adding other camera angles and the much needed 'free look' ability. Yep, you can finally just stand there and look around until you spot the secret tape perched several hundred feet up.

Past THPS games have been applauded for their eclectic, smart soundtracks. Well keep clapping, because THPS 3 offers more audio goodies. From the obligatory pop punk to wacky hip-hop to just wacky in general, the tunes are once again solid, fun and varied. Plus, they threw in the Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop for old-schoolers like yours truly.

When you tire of the single player, you can always grab a friend and play a good old-fashioned game of HORSE, Graffiti or Trick Attack. Add to that King of the Hill matches (essentially an intense game of tag) and Slap, where you just run into each other at high speeds. They're all decent fun, but the real meat of multiplayer lies in the innovative online multiplayer option, the first of its kind on the PS2.

Yes, you read that right. Online. "But Ben," you protest, "the PS2 isn't able to go online yet! The modem doesn't come out until Spring 2002!" Correct, dear voice in my head, but that didn't sway Activision.

In a bold move, they decided to team up with Gamespy to allow the more resourceful of you to actually get online and skate together. Truth be told, it's a pain in the ass getting your PS2 online without the yet-to-be-seen PS2 modem. You basically need to find a USB/Ethernet adapter, then run a line from the PS2 USB ports into your modem (DSL, Cable and dial-up all work). After some tweaking (really just user name and password is required - no extensive protocol crap is needed), you're up and running. Er, skating.

It works like a charm. In minutes you'll be taking on people all over the country in the various multiplayer modes (except HORSE, oddly). Wanna chat? Then just grab any USB keyboard and plug it into the second USB port on the PS2. You can also use the little built-into-the-game-menu keyboard, but it's hard typing with a PS2 controller. At any rate, it's very simple and incredibly effective.

The online capability is great fun and extends the replayability. Heck, the whole process was easier than getting Seganet working, plus there's no monthly fee. Kudos to Activision and Neversoft for taking the bull by the horns and not waiting around another few months for Sony to theoretically get their act together.

When it's all said and done, when your eyes have completely dried up after spending 7 straight hours obsessing over massive rail grinds, THPS 3 comes through on its promise to do next-gen justice to the series. There simply is no better skating game available, and for that matter, very few other games that compete, period. Looks like Tony one-upped the 900.